i    % 


BANCROFT 

LIBRARY 

<• 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


The   Story  of  the   Outlaw 


From  a  painting  by  John  W.  Norton 

PLUMMER/S  MEN  HOLDING  UP  THE  BANNACK  STAGE 

(See  page  IIQ) 


THE 


STORY  OF  THE  OUTLAW 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  WESTERN  DESPERADO 


WITH     HISTORICAL     NARRATIVES    OF   FAMOUS    OUT- 
LAWS; THE  STORIES  OF  NOTED  BORDER  WARSj 
VIGILANTE  MOVEMENTS    AND    ARMED 
CONFLICTS    ON    THE    FRONTIER 


BY 

EMERSON    HOUGH 


NEW  YORK 

THE  OUTING   PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
1907 


COPYRIGHT,  1905,  BY 

THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,  1907,  BY 
EMERSON  HOUGH 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London,  England 


A II  Rights  Reserved 


THE    OUTING    PRESS 
DEPOSIT,    N.    Y. 


7*  Iff 

BANCROFT 
UBRARY 


Preface 


PREFACE 

IN  offering  this  study  of  the  American  des- 
perado, the  author  constitutes  himself  no 
apologist  for  the  acts  of  any  desperado; 
yet  neither  does  he  feel  that  apology  is  needed 
for  the  theme  itself.  The  outlaw,  the  despe- 
rado— that  somewhat  distinct  and  easily  recog- 
nizable figure  generally  known  in  the  West  as 
the  "bad  man" — is  a  character  unique  in  our 
national  history,  and  one  whose  like  scarcely  has 
been  produced  in  any  land  other  than  this.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  promote  absurd  and  melo- 
dramatic impressions  regarding  a  type  properly 
to  be  called  historic,  and  properly  to  be  handled 
as  such.  The  truth  itself  is  thrilling  enough, 
and  difficult  as  that  frequently  has  been  of  dis- 
covery, it  is  the  truth  which  has  been  sought 
herein. 

A  thesis  on  the  text  of  disregard  for  law 
might  well  be  put  to  better  use  than  to  serve 
merely  as  exciting  reading,  fit  to  pass  away  an 


vi  Preface 

idle  hour.  It  might,  and  indeed  it  may  —  if 
the  reader  so  shall  choose  —  offer  a  foundation 
for  wider  arguments  than  those  suggested  in 
these  pages,  which  deal  rather  with  premises 
than  conclusions.  The  lesson  of  our  dealings 
with  our  bad  men  of  the  past  can  teach  us,  if 
we  like,  the  best  method  of  dealing  with  our 
bad  men  to-day. 

There  are  other  lessons  which  we  might  take 
from  an  acquaintance  with  frontier  methods  of 
enforcing  respect  for  the  law;  and  the  first  of 
these  is  a  practical  method  of  handling  criminals 
in  the  initial  executive  acts  of  the  law.  Never 
were  American  laws  so  strong  as  to-day,  and 
never  were  our  executive  officers  so  weak.  Our 
cities  frequently  are  ridden  with  criminals  or 
rioters.  We  set  hundreds  of  policemen  to  restore 
order,  but  order  is  not  restored.  What  is  the 
average  policeman  as  a  criminal-taker?  Cloddy 
and  coarse  of  fiber,  rarely  with  personal  .heredity 
of  mental  or  bodily  vigor,  with  no  training  at 
arms,  with  no  sharp,  incisive  quality  of  nerve  ac- 
tion, fat,  unwieldy,  unable  to  run  a  hundred 
yards  and  keep  his  breath,  not  skilled  enough  to 
kill  his  man  even  when  he  has  him  cornered,  he 
is  the  archtype  of  all  unseemliness  as  the  agent 
of  a  law  which  to-day  needs  a  sterner  unholding 


Preface  vii 

than  ever  was  the  case  in  all  our  national  life. 
We  use  this  sort  of  tools  in  handling  criminals, 
when  each  of  us  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
the  city  which  would  select  twenty  Western 
peace  officers  of  the  old  type  and  set  them  to 
work  without  restrictions  as  to  the  size  of  their 
imminent  graveyards,  would  free  itself  of 
criminals  in  three  months'  time,  and  would  re- 
main free  so  long  as  its  methods  remained  in 
force. 

As  for  the  subject-matter  of  the  following 
work,  it  may  be  stated  that,  while  attention  has 
been  paid  to  the  great  and  well-known  instances 
and  epochs  of  outlawry,  many  of  the  facts 
given  have  not  previously  found  their  way  into 
print.  The  story  of  the  Lincoln  County  War 
of  the  Southwest  is  given  truthfully  for  the  first 
time,  and  after  full  acquaintance  with  sources 
of  information  now  inaccessible  or  passing  away. 
The  Stevens  County  War  of  Kansas,  which  took 
place,  as  it  were,  but  yesterday  and  directly  at 
our  doors,  has  had  no  history  but  a  garbled  one ; 
and  as  much  might  be  said  of  many  border 
encounters  whose  chief  use  heretofore  has  been 
to  curdle  the  blood  in  penny-dreadfuls.  Accu- 
racy has  been  sought  among  the  confusing 
statements  purporting  to  constitute  the  record 


viii  Preface 

in  such  historic  movements  as  those  of  the  "vigi- 
lantes" of  California  and  Montana  mining  days, 
and  of  the  later  cattle  days  when  "wars"  were 
common  between  thieves  and  outlaws,  and  the 
representatives  of  law  and  order, — themselves 
not  always  duly  authenticated  officers  of  the 
law. 

No  one  man  can  have  lived  through  the  en- 
tire time  of  the  American  frontier;  and  any 
work  of  this  kind  must  be  in  part  a  matter  of 
compilation  in  so  far  as  it  refers  to  matters  of 
the  past.  In  all  cases  where  practicable,  how- 
ever, the  author  has  made  up  the  records  from 
stories  of  actual  participants,  survivors  and  eye- 
witnesses; and  he  is  able  in  some  measure  to 
write  of  things  and  men  personally  known  dur- 
ing twenty-five  years  of  Western  life.  Captain 
Patrick  F.  Garrett,  of  New  Mexico,  central  fig- 
ure of  the  border  fighting  in  that  district  in  the 
early  railroad  days,  has  been  of  much  service  in 
extending  the  author's  information  on  that  re- 
gion and  time.  Mr.  Herbert  M.  Tonney,  now 
of  Illinois,  tells  his  own  story  as  a  survivor  of 
the  typical  county-seat  war  of  Kansas,  in  which 
he  was  shot  and  left  for  dead.  Many  other  men 
have  offered  valuable  narratives. 

In  dealing  with  any  subject  of  early  American 


Preface  ix 

history,  there  is  no  authority  more  incontestable 
than  Mr.  Alexander  Hynds,  of  Dandridge, 
Tennessee,  whose  acquaintance  with  singular 
and  forgotten  bits  of  early  frontier  history  bor- 
ders upon  the  unique  in  its  way.  Neither  does 
better  authority  exist  than  Hon.  N.  P.  Lang- 
ford,  of  Minnesota,  upon  all  matters  having 
to  do  with  life  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  region 
in  the  decade  of  1860-1870.  He  was  an  argo- 
naut of  the  Rockies  and  a  citizen  of  Montana 
and  of  other  Western  territories  before  the  com- 
ing of  the  days  of  law.  Free  quotations  are  made 
from  his  graphic  work,  "  Vigilante  Days  and 
Ways,"  which  is  both  interesting  of  itself  and 
valuable  as  a  historical  record. 

The  stories  of  modern  train-robbing  bandits 
and  outlaw  gangs  are  taken  partly  from  per- 
sonal narratives,  partly  from  judicial  records, 
and  partly  from  works  frequently  more  sensa- 
tional than  accurate,  and  requiring  much  sift- 
ing and  verifying  in  detail.  Naturally,  very 
many  volumes  of  Western  history  and  adventure 
have  been  consulted.  Much  of  this  labor  has 
been  one  of  love  for  the  days  and  places  con- 
cerned, which  exist  no  longer  as  they  once  did. 
The  total  result,  it  is  hoped,  will  aid  in  telling 
at  least  a  portion  of  the  story  of  the  vivid  and 


x  Preface 

significant  life  of  the  West,  and  of  that  frontier 
whose  van,  if  ever  marked  by  human  lawless- 
ness, has,  none  the  less,  ever  been  led  by  the 
banner  of  human  liberty.  May  that  banner  still 
wave  to-day,  and  though  blood  be  again  the 
price,  may  it  never  permanently  be  replaced  by 
that  of  license  and  injustice  in  our  America. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  THE  DESPERADO  i 

II  THE  IMITATION  DESPERADO        .  .14 

III  THE  LAND  OF  THE  DESPERADO     .  .     22 

IV  THE  EARLY  OUTLAW          .        .  .35 
V  THE  VIGILANTES  OF  CALIFORNIA  .     74 

VI  THE  OUTLAW  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS  .     98 

VII  HENRY  PLUMMER        .        .        .  .105 

VIII  BOONE  HELM 127 

IX  DEATH  SCENES  OF  DESPERADOES  .  137 

X  JOSEPH  A.  SLADE        .        .        .  .145 

XI  THE  DESPERADO  OF  THE  PLAINS  .  .  154 

XII  WILD  BILL  HICKOK    .        .        .  .167 

XIII  FRONTIER  WARS          .        .        .  .187 

XIV  THE  LINCOLN  COUNTY  WAR      .  .196 
XV  THE  STEVENS  COUNTY  WAR      .  .  227 

XVI  BIOGRAPHIES  OF  BAD  MEN  .        .  .  256 

XVII  THE  FIGHT  OF  BUCKSHOT  ROBERTS  .  284 

xi 


xii  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

XVIII  THE  MAN  HUNT       .        .  .  .292 

XIX  BAD  MEN  OF  TEXAS  .        .  .  .313 

XX  MODERN  BAD  MEN     .        .  .  .  340 

XXI  BAD  MEN  OF  THE  INDIAN  NATIONS  .  371 

XXII  DESPERADOES  OF  THE  CITIES  .  .  393 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Plummer's  Men  Holding  Up  the  Bannack  Stage 

(Frontispiece) 


FACING 
PAGE 


The  Scene  of  Many  Little  Wars  .  .  .12 
Types  of  Border  Barricades  .  .  .  .36 
The  Scene  of  Many  Hangings  .  .  .  .138 
How  the  Rustler  Worked  .  .  .  .164 
Wild  Bill  Hickok's  Desperate  Fight  .  .  .172 
John  Simpson  Chisum  .  .  .  .  .  198 
Men  Prominent  in  the  Lincoln  County  War  .218 
The  "  Women  in  the  Case "  .  .  .222 

The  McSween  Store  and  Bank         .         .         .  240 

Billy  the  Kid 258 

.?'  The  Next  Instant  He  Fired  and  Shot  Ollinger 

Dead " 272 

Pat  F.  Garrett 294 


xiv  Illustrations 


FACING 
PAGE 


A  Typical  Western  Man-Hunt  ....  302 

The  Old  Chisum  Ranch 330 

The  Old  Fritz  Ranch 358 

A  Border  Fortress 358 

"  Afterward "    .  .        .        .        .        .398 


The  Story  of  The   Outlaw 


Chapter  I 

The  Desperado — Analysis  of  His  Make-u\ 
How  the  Desperado  Got  to  Be  Bad  and  Why 
— Some  Men  Naturally  Skillful  with  Weapons 
— Typical  Desperadoes.  ::::::: 

ENERGY  and  action  may  be  of  two  sorts, 
good  or  bad;  this  being  as  well  as  we 
can  phrase  it  in  human  affairs.  The 
live  wires  that  net  our  streets  are  more  danger- 
ous than  all  the  bad  men  the  country  ever  knew, 
but  we  call  electricity  on  the  whole  good  in  its 
action.  We  lay  it  under  law,  but  sometimes  it 
breaks  out  and  has  its  own  way.  These  out- 
breaks will  occur  until  the  end  of  time,  in  live 
wires  and  vital  men.  Each  land  in  the  world 
produces  its  own  men  individually  bad — and,  in 
time,  other  bad  men  who  kill  them  for  the  gen- 
eral good. 

There  are  bad  Chinamen,  bad  Filipinos,  bad 
Mexicans,  and  Indians,  and  negroes,  and  bad 


2  The  Story  of 

white  men.  The  white  bad  man  is  the  worst 
bad  man  of  the  world,  and  the  prize-taking  bad 
man  of  the  lot  is  the  Western  white  bad  man. 
Turn  the  white  man  loose  in  a  land  free  of 
restraint — such  as  was  always  that  Golden 
Fleece  land,  vague,  shifting  and  transitory, 
known  as  the  American  West — and  he  simply 
reverts  to  the  ways  of  Teutonic  and  Gothic  for- 
ests. The  civilized  empire  of  the  West  has 
grown  in  spite  of  this,  because  of  that  other 
strange  germ,  the  love  of  law,  anciently  im- 
planted in  the  soul  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  That 
there  was  little  difference  between  the  bad  man 
and  the  good  man  who  went  out  after  him 
was  frequently  demonstrated  in  the  early  roar- 
ing days  of  the  West.  The  religion  of  progress 
and  civilization  meant  very  little  to  the  Western 
town  marshal,  who  sometimes,  or  often,  was 
a  peace  officer  chiefly  because  he  was  a  good 
fighting  man. 

We  band  together  and  "elect"  political  rep- 
resentatives who  do  not  represent  us  at  all.  We 
* 'elect"  executive  officers  who  execute  nothing 
but  their  own  wishes.  We  pay  innumerable 
policemen  to  take  from  our  shoulders  the  bur- 
den of  self -protection ;  and  the  policemen  do  not 
do  this  thing.  Back  of  all  the  law  is  the  undele- 


The   Outlaw  3 

gated  personal  right,  that  vague  thing  which, 
none  the  less,  is  recognized  in  all  the  laws  and 
charters  of  the  world;  as  England  and  France 
of  old,  and  Russia  to-day,  may  show.  This 
undelegated  personal  right  is  in  each  of  us,  or 
ought  to  be.  If  there  is  in  you  no  hot  blood 
to  break  into  flame  and  set  you  arbiter  for  your- 
self in  some  sharp,  crucial  moment,  then  God 
pity  you,  for  no  woman  ever  loved  you  if  she 
could  find  anything  else  to  love,  and  you  are  fit 
neither  as  man  nor  citizen. 

As  the  individual  retains  an  undelegated 
right,  so  does  the  body  social.  We  employ  poli- 
ticians, but  at  heart  most  of  us  despise  politicians 
and  love  fighting  men.  Society  and  law  are  not 
absolutely  wise  nor  absolutely  right,  but  only 
as  a  compromise  relatively  wise  and  right.  The 
bad  man,  so  called,  may  have  been  in  large  part 
relatively  bad.  This  much  we  may  say  scientific- 
ally, and  without  the  slightest  cheapness.  It 
does  not  mean  that  we  shall  waste  any  maudlin 
sentiment  over  a  desperado ;  and  certainly  it  does 
not  mean  that  we  shall  have  anything  but  con- 
tempt for  the  pretender  at  desperadoism. 

Who  and  what  was  the  bad  man  ?  Scientific- 
ally and  historically  he  was  even  as  you  and  I. 
Whence  did  he  come  ?  From  any  and  all  places. 


4  The  Story  of 

What  did  he  look  like?  He  came  in  all  sorts 
and  shapes,  all  colors  and  sizes — just  as  cow- 
ards do.  As  to  knowing  him,  the  only  way  was 
by  trying  him.  His  reputation,  true  or  false, 
just  or  unjust,  became,  of  course,  the  herald  of 
the  bad  man  in  due  time.  The  "killer"  of  a 
Western  town  might  be  known  throughout  the 
state  or  in  several  states.  His  reputation  might 
long  outlast  that  of  able  statesmen  and  public 
benefactors. 

What  distinguished  the  bad  man  in  peculiarity 
from  his  fellowman?  Why  was  he  better  with 
weapons  ?  What  is  courage,  in  the  last  analysis  ? 
We  ought  to  be  able  to  answer  these  questions 
in  a  purely  scientific  way.  We  have  machines 
for  photographing  relative  quickness  of  thought 
and  muscular  action.  We  are  able  to  record  the 
varying  speeds  of  impulse  transmission  in  the 
nerves  of  different  individuals.  If  you  were 
picking  out  a  bad  man,  would  you  select  one 
who,  on  the  machine,  showed  a  dilatory  nerve 
response?  Hardly.  The  relative  fitness  for  a 
man  to  be  "bad,"  to  become  extraordinarily 
quick  and  skillful  with  weapons,  could,  without 
doubt,  be  predetermined  largely  by  these  scien- 
tific measurements.  Of  course,  having  no 
thought-machines  in  the  early  West,  they  got  at 


Th?    Outlaw 


the  matter  by  experimenting,  and  so,  very  often, 
by  a  graveyard  route.  You  could  not  always 
stop  to  feel  the  pulse  of  a  suspected  killer. 

The  use  of  firearms  with  swiftness  and  accu- 
racy was  necessary  in  the  calling  of  the  des- 
perado, after  fate  had  marked  him  and  set  him 
apart  for  the  inevitable,  though  possibly  long- 
deferred,  end.  This  skill  with  weapons  was  a 
natural  gift  in  the  case  of  nearly  every  man 
who  attained  great  reputation  whether  as  killer 
of  victims  or  as  killer  of  killers.  Practice  assisted 
in  proficiency,  but  a  Wild  Bill  or  a  Slade  or  a 
Billy  the  Kid  was  born  and  not  made. 

Quickness  in  nerve  action  is  usually  backed 
with  good  digestion,  and  hard  life  in  the  open 
is  good  medicine  for  the  latter.  This,  however, 
does  not  wholly  cover  the  case.  A  slow  man 
also  might  be  a  brave  man.  Sooner  or  later,  if 
he  went  into  the  desperado  business  on  either 
side  of  the  game,  he  would  fall  before  the  man 
who  was  brave  as  himself  and  a  fraction  faster 
with  the  gun. 

There  were  unknown  numbers  of  potential  bad 
men  who  died  mute  and  inglorious  after  a  life 
spent  at  a  desk  or  a  plow.  They  might  have 
been  bad  if  matters  had  shaped  right  for  that. 
Each  war  brings  out  its  own  heroes  from  un- 


6  The  Story  of 

suspected  places;  each  sudden  emergency  sum- 
mons its  own  fit  man.  Say  that  a  man  took 
to  the  use  of  weapons,  and  found  himself  arbi- 
ter of  life  and  death  with  lesser  animals,  and 
able  to  grant  them  either  at  a  distance.  He 
went  on,  pleased  with  his  growing  skill  with 
firearms.  He  discovered  that  as  the  sword 
had  in  one  age  of  the  world  lengthened 
the  human  arm,  so  did  the  six-shooter  —  that 
epochal  instrument,  invented  at  precisely  that 
time  of  the  American  life  when  the  human 
arm  needed  lengthening — extend  and  strengthen 
his  arm,  and  make  him  and  all  men  equal.  The 
user  of  weapons  felt  his  powers  increased.  So 
now,  in  time,  there  came  to  him  a  moment  of 
danger.  There  was  his  enemy.  There  was  the 
affront,  the  challenge.  Perhaps  it  was  male 
against  male,  a  matter  of  sex,  prolific  always  in 
bloodshed.  It  might  be  a  matter  of  property, 
or  perhaps  it  was  some  taunt  as  to  his  own  per- 
sonal courage.  Perhaps  alcohol  came  into  the 
question,  as  was  often  the  case.  For  one  reason 
or  the  other,  it  came  to  the  ordeal  of  combat. 
It  was  the  undelegated  right  of  one  individual 
against  that  of  another.  The  law  was  not  in- 
voked— the  law  would  not  serve.  Even  as  the 
quicker  set  of  nerves  flashed  into  action,  the 


The  Outlaw 


arm  shot  forward,  and  there  smote  the  point 
of  flame  as  did  once  the  point  of  steel.  The 
victim  fell,  his  own  weapon  clutched  in  his  hand, 
a  fraction  too  late.  The  law  cleared  the  killer. 
It  was  "self-defense."  "It  was  an  even  break," 
his  fellowmen  said;  although  thereafter  they 
were  more  reticent  with  him  and  sought  him  out 
less  frequently. 

"It  was  an  even  break,"  said  the  killer  to  him- 
self— "an  even  break,  him  or  me."  But,  per- 
haps, the  repetition  of  this  did  not  serve  to  blot 
out  a  certain  mental  picture.  I  have  had  a  bad 
man  tell  me  that  he  killed  his  second  man  to 
get  rid  of  the  mental  image  of  his  first  victim. 

But  this  exigency  might  arise  again;  indeed, 
most  frequently  did  arise.  Again  the  embryo 
bad  man  was  the  quicker.  His  self-approbation 
now,  perhaps,  began  to  grow.  This  was  the 
crucial  time  of  his  life.  He  might  go  on  now 
and  become  a  bad  man,  or  he  might  cheapen 
and  become  an  imitation  desperado.  In  either 
event,  his  third  man  left  him  still  more  confi- 
dent. His  courage  and  his  skill  in  weapons 
gave  him  assuredness  and  ease  at  the  time  of  an 
encounter.  He  was  now  becoming  a  specialist. 
Time  did  the  rest,  until  at  length  they  buried 
him. 


8  The  Story  of 

The  bad  man  of  genuine  sort  rarely  looked  the 
part  assigned  to  him  in  the  popular  imagination. 
The  long-haired  blusterer,  adorned  with  a  dia- 
lect that  never  was  spoken,  serves  very  well  in 
fiction  about  the  West,  but  that  is  not  the  real 
thing.  The  most  dangerous  man  was  apt  to  be 
quiet  and  smooth-spoken.  When  an  antagonist 
blustered  and  threatened,  the  most  dangerous 
man  only  felt  rising  in  his  own  soul,  keen  and 
stern,  that  strange  exultation  which  often  comes 
with  combat  for  the  man  naturally  brave.  A 
Western  officer  of  established  reputation  once 
said  to  me,  while  speaking  of  a  recent  personal 
difficulty  into  which  he  had  been  forced:  "I 
hadn't  been  in  anything  of  that  sort  for  years, 
and  I  wished  I  was  out  of  it.  Then  I  said  to 
myself,  'Is  it  true  that  you  are  getting  old — 
have  you  lost  your  nerve  ?'  Then  all  at  once  the 
old  feeling  came  over  me,  and  I  was  just  like  I 
used  to  be.  I  felt  calm  and  happy,  and  I 
laughed  after  that.  I  jerked  my  gun  and  shoved 
it  into  his  stomach.  He  put  up  his  hands  and 
apologized.  'I  will  give  you  a  hundred  dollars 
now,'  he  said,  'if  you  will  tell  me  where  you  got 
that  gun.'  I  suppose  I  was  a  trifle  quick  for 
him." 

The  virtue  of  the  "drop"  was  eminently  re- 


The   Outlaw 


spected  among  bad  men.  Sometimes,  however, 
men  were  killed  in  the  last  desperate  convic- 
tion that  no  man  on  earth  was  as  quick  as  they. 
What  came  near  being  an  incident  of  that  kind 
was  related  by  a  noted  Western  sheriff. 

"Down  on  the  edge  of  the  Pecos  valley," 
said  he,  "a  dozen  miles  below  old  Fort  Sumner, 
there  used  to  be  a  little  saloon,  and  I  once  cap- 
tured a  man  there.  He  came  in  from  some- 
where east  of  our  territory,  and  was  wanted 
for  murder.  The  reward  offered  for  him  was 
twelve  hundred  dollars.  Since  he  was  a 
stranger,  none  of  us  knew  him,  but  the  sheriff's 
descriptions  sent  in  said  he  had  a  freckled  face, 
small  hands,  and  a  red  spot  in  one  eye.  I  heard 
that  there  was  a  new  saloon-keeper  in  there, 
and  thought  he  might  be  the  man,  so  I  took  a 
deputy  and  went  down  one  day  to  see  about  it. 

"I  told  my  deputy  not  to  shoot  until  he  saw 
me  go  after  my  gun.  I  didn't  want  to  hold 
the  man  up  unless  he  was  the  right  one,  and  I 
wanted  to  be  sure  about  that  identification  mark 
in  the  eye.  Now,  when  a  bartender  is  waiting 
on  you,  he  will  never  look  you  in  the  face  until 
just  as  you  raise  your  glass  to  drink.  I  told 
my  deputy  that  we  would  order  a  couple  of 
drinks,  and  so  get  a  chance  to  look  this  fellow 


io  The  Story  of 

in  the  eye.  When  he  looked  up,  I  did  look  him 
in  the  eye,  and  there  was  the  red  spot ! 

"I  dropped  my  glass  and  jerked  my  gun  and 
covered  him,  but  he  just  wouldn't  put  up  his 
hands  for  a  while.  I  didn't  want  to  kill  him, 
but  I  thought  I  surely  would  have  to.  He  kept 
both  of  his  hands  resting  on  the  bar,  and  I 
knew  he  had  a  gun  within  three  feet  of  him 
somewhere.  At  last  slowly  he  gave  in.  I 
treated  him  well,  as  I  always  did  a  prisoner, 
told  him  we  would  square  it  if  we  had  made  any 
mistake.  We  put  irons  on  him  and  started  for 
Las  Vegas  with  him  in  a  wagon.  The  next 
morning,  out  on  the  trail,  he  confessed  every- 
thing to  me.  We  turned  him  over,  and  later 
he  was  tried  and  hung.  I  always  considered  him 
to  be  a  pretty  bad  man.  So  far  as  the  result 
was  concerned,  he  might  about  as  well  have 
gone  after  his  gun.  I  certainly  thought  that 
was  what  he  was  going  to  do.  He  had  sand. 
I  could  just  see  him  stand  there  and  balance  the 
chances  in  his  mind." 

"Another  of  the  nerviest  men  I  ever  ran 
up  against,"  the  same  officer  went  on,  reflec- 
tively, "I  met  when  I  was  sheriff  of  Dona  Ana 
county,  New  Mexico.  I  was  in  Las  Cruces, 
when  there  came  in  a  sheriff  from  over  in  the 


The   Outlaw  n 

Indian  Nations  looking  for  a  fugitive  who  had 
broken  out  of  a  penitentiary  after  killing  a 
guard  and  another  man  or  so.  This  sheriff  told 
me  that  the  criminal  in  question  was  the  most 
desperate  man  he  had  ever  known,  and  that  no 
matter  how  we  came  on  him,  he  would  put  up  a 
fight  and  we  would  have  to  kill  him  before  we 
could  take  him.  We  located  our  man,  who  was 
cooking  on  a  ranch  six  or  eight  miles  out  of 
town.  I  told  the  sheriff  to  stay  in  town,  be- 
cause the  man  would  know  him  and  would  not 
know  us.  I  had  a  Mexican  deputy  along 
with  me. 

"I  put  out  my  deputy  on  one  side  of  the 
house  and  went  in.  I  found  my  man  just  wiping 
his  hands  on  a  towel  after  washing  his  dishes. 
I  threw  down  on  him,  and  he  answered  by 
smashing  me  in  the  face,  and  then  jumping 
through  the  window  like  a  squirrel.  I  caught 
at  him  and  tore  the  shirt  off  his  back,  but  I 
didn't  stop  him.  Then  I  ran  out  of  the  door 
and  caught  him  on  the  porch.  I  did  not  want  to 
kill  him,  so  I  struck  him  over  the  head  with  the 
handcuffs  I  had  ready  for  him.  He  dropped, 
but  came  up  like  a  flash,  and  struck  me  so  hard 
with  his  fist  that  I  was  badly  jarred.  We  fought 
hammer  and  tongs  for  a  while,  but  at  length 


12  The  Story  of 

he  broke  away,  sprang  through  the  door,  and 
ran  down  the  hall.  He  was  going  to  his  room 
after  his  gun.  At  that  moment  my  Mexican 
came  in,  and  having  no  sentiment  about  it,  just 
whaled  away  and  shot  him  in  the  back,  killing 
him  on  the  spot.  The  doctors  said  when  they 
examined  this  man's  body  that  he  was  the  most 
perfect  physical  specimen  they  had  ever  seen. 
I  can  testify  that  he  was  a  fighter.  The  sheriff 
offered  me  the  reward,  but  I  wouldn't  take  any 
of  it.  I  told  him  that  I  would  be  over  in  his 
country  some  time,  and  that  I  was  sure  he 
would  do  as  much  for  me  if  I  needed  his  help. 
I  hope  that  if  I  do  have  to  go  after  his  par- 
ticular sort  of  bad  people,  I'll  be  lucky  in  get- 
ting the  first  start  on  my  man.  That  man  was 
as  desperate  a  fighter  as  I  ever  saw  or  expect  to 
see.  Give  a  man  of  that  stripe  any  kind  of  a 
show  and  he's  going  to  kill  you,  that's  all.  He 
knows  that  he  has  no  chance  under  the  law. 
"Sometimes  they  got  away  with  desperate 
chances,  too,  as  many  a  peace  officer  has  learned 
to  his  cost.  The  only  way  to  go  after  such  a 
man  is  to  go  prepared,  and  then  to  give  him 
no  earthly  show  to  get  the  best  of  you.  I  don't 
mean  that  an  officer  ought  to  shoot  down  a  man 
if  he  has  a  show  to  take  his  prisoner  alive;  but 
I  do  mean  that  he  ought  to  remember  that  he 


cr    C/: 
3     O 


B" 


*  I 

n      K5 

5-  t-1 


- 


The   Outlaw  13 

may  be  pitted  against  a  man  who  is  just  as 
brave  as  he  is,  and  just  as  good  with  a  gun,  and 
who  is  fighting  for  his  life." 

Of  course,  such  a  man  as  this,  whether  con- 
fronted by  an  officer  of  the  law  or  by  another 
man  against  whom  he  has  a  personal  grudge, 
or  who  has  in  any  way  challenged  him  to  the 
ordeal  of  weapons,  was  steadfast  in  his  own 
belief  that  he  was  as  brave  as  any,  and  as  quick 
with  weapons.  Thus,  until  at  length  he  met 
his  master  in  the  law  of  human  progress  and 
civilization,  he  simply  added  to  his  own  list  of 
victims,  or  was  added  to  the  list  of  another  of 
his  own  sort.  For  a  very  long  time,  moreover, 
there  existed  a  great  region  on  the  frontier 
where  the  law  could  not  protect.  There  was 
good  reason,  therefore,  for  a  man's  learning  to 
depend  upon  his  own  courage  and  strength  and 
skill.  He  had  nothing  else  to  protect  him, 
whether  he  was  good  or  bad.  In  the  typical 
days  of  the  Western  bad  man,  life  was  the  prop- 
erty of  the  individual,  and  not  of  society,  and 
one  man  placed  his  life  against  another's  as  the 
only  way  of  solving  hard  personal  problems. 
Those  days  and  those  conditions  brought  out 
some  of  the  boldest  and  most  reckless  men  the 
earth  ever  saw.  Before  we  freely  criticize  them, 
we  ought  fully  to  understand  them. 


14  The  Story  of 


Chapter  II 

The  Imitation  Desperado — The  Cheap  "Long 
Hair" — A  Desperado  in  Appearance,  a  Coward 
at  Heart — Some  Desperadoes  Who  Did  Not 
"Stand  the  Acid."  ::::::: 

THE  counterfeit  bad  man,  in  so  far  as 
he  has  a  place  in  literature,  was  largely 
produced  by  Western  consumptives  for 
Eastern  consumption.  Sometimes  he  was  in  per- 
son manufactured  in  the  East  and  sent  West. 
It  is  easy  to  see  the  philosophical  difference  be- 
tween the  actual  bad  man  of  the  West  and  the 
imitation  article.  The  bad  man  was  an  evolu- 
tion; the  imitation  bad  man  was  an  instanta- 
neous creation,  a  supply  arising  full  panoplied 
to  fill  a  popular  demand.  Silently  there  arose, 
partly  in  the  West  and  partly  in  the  East,  men 
who  gravely  and  calmly  proceeded  to  look  the 
part.  After  looking  the  part  for  a  time,  to  their 
own  satisfaction  at  least,  and  after  taking  them- 


The   Outlaw  15 

selves  seriously  as  befitted  the  situation,  they,  in 
very  many  instances,  faded  away  and  disap- 
peared in  that  Nowhere  whence  they  came. 
Some  of  them  took  themselves  too  seriously  for 
their  own  good.  Of  course,  there  existed  for 
some  years  certain  possibilities  that  any  one  of 
these  bad  men  might  run  against  the  real  thing. 
There  always  existed  in  the  real,  sober,  level- 
headed West  a  contempt  for  the  West-struck 
man  who  was  not  really  bad,  but  who  wanted  to 
seem  "bad."  Singularly  enough,  men  of  this 
type  were  not  so  frequently  local  products  as 
immigrants.  The  "bootblack  bad  man"  was  a 
character  recognized  on  the  frontier — the  city 
tough  gone  West  with  ambitions  to  achieve  a 
bad  eminence.  Some  of  these  men  were  par- 
tially bad  for  a  while.  Some  of  them,  no  doubt, 
even  left  behind  them,  after  their  sudden  fu- 
nerals, the  impression  that  they  had  been 
wholly  bad.  You  cannot  detect  all  the  counter- 
feit currency  m  the  world,  severe  as  the  test  for 
counterfeits  was  in  the  old  West.  There  is,  of 
course,  no  great  amount  of  difference  between 
the  West  and  the  East.  All  America,  as  well 
as  the  West,  demanded  of  its  citizens  nothing 
so  much  as  genuineness.  Yet  the  Western 
phrase,  to  "stand  the  acid,"  was  not  surpassed 


1 6  The  Story  of 

in  graphic  descriptiveness.  When  an  imitation 
bad  man  came  into  a  town  of  the  old  frontier, 
he  had  to  "stand  the  acid"  or  get  out.  His 
hand  would  be  called  by  some  one.  "My 
friend,"  said  old  Bob  Bobo,  the  famous  Mis- 
sissippi bear  hunter,  to  a  man  who  was  doing 
some  pretty  loud  talking,  "I  have  always 
noticed  that  when  a  man  goes  out  hunting  for 
trouble  in  these  bottoms,  he  almost  always  finds 
it."  Two  weeks  later,  this  same  loud  talker 
threatened  a  calm  man  in  simple  jeans  pants, 
who  took  a  shotgun  and  slew  him  impulsively. 
Now,  the  West  got  its  hot  blood  largely  from 
the  South,  and  the  dogma  of  the  Southern  town 
was  the  same  in  the  Western  mining  town  or 
cow  camp — the  bad  man  or  the  would-be  bad 
man  had  to  declare  himself  before  long,  and 
the  acid  bottle  was  always  close  at  hand. 

That  there  were  grades  in  counterfeit  bad 
men  was  accepted  as  a  truth  on  the  frontier.  A 
man  might  be  known  as  dangerous,  as  a  mur- 
derer at  heart,  and  yet  be  despised.  The  imita- 
tion bad  man  discovered  that  it  is  comparatively 
easy  to  terrify  a  good  part  of  the  population  of 
a  community.  Sometimes  a  base  imitation  of  a 
desperado  is  exalted  in  the  public  eye  as  the  real 
article.  A  few  years  ago  four  misled  hoodlums 


The  Outlaw  17 

of  Chicago  held  up  a  street-car  barn,  killed  two 
men,  stole  a  sum  of  money,  killed  a  police- 
man and  another  man,  and  took  refuge  in 
a  dugout  in  the  sand  hills  below  the  city,  com- 
porting themselves  according  to  the  most  ac- 
cepted dime-novel  standards.  Clumsily  arrested 
by  one  hundred  men  or  so,  instead  of  being  tidily 
killed  by  three  or  four,  as  would  have  been  the 
case  on  the  frontier,  they  were  put  in  jail,  given 
columns  of  newspaper  notice,  and  worshiped 
by  large  crowds  of  maudlin  individuals.  These 
men  probably  died  in  the  belief  that  they  were 
"bad."  They  were  not  bad  men,  but  imita- 
tions, counterfeit,  and,  indeed,  nothing  more 
than  cheap  and  dirty  little  murderers. 

Of  course,  we  all  feel  able  to  detect  the  mere 
notoriety  hunter,  who  poses  about  in  cheap  pre- 
tentiousness ;  but  now  and  then  in  the  West  there 
turned  up  something  more  difficult  to  under- 
stand. Perhaps  the  most  typical  case  of  imita- 
tion bad  man  ever  known,  at  least  in  the  South- 
west, was  Bob  Ollinger,  who  was  killed  by  Billy 
the  Kid  in  1881,  when  the  latter  escaped  from 
jail  at  Lincoln,  New  Mexico.  That  Ollinger 
was  a  killer  had  been  proved  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  a  doubt.  He  had  no  respect  for  human 
life,  and  those  who  knew  him  best  knew  that  he 


1 8  The  Story  of 

was  a  murderer  at  heart.  His  reputation  was 
gained  otherwise  than  through  the  severe  test 
of  an  "even  break."  Some  say  that  he  killed 
Chavez,  a  Mexican,  as  he  offered  his  own  hand 
in  greeting.  He  killed  another  man,  Hill,  in  a 
similarly  treacherous  way.  Later,  when,  as  a 
peace  officer,  he  was  with  a  deputy,  Pierce,  serv- 
ing a  warrant  on  one  Jones,  he  pulled  his  gun 
and,  without  need  or  provocation,  shot  Jones 
through.  The  same  bullet,  passing  through 
Jones's  body,  struck  Pierce  in  the  leg  and  left 
him  a  cripple  for  life.  Again,  Ollinger  was  out 
as  a  deputy  with  a  noted  sheriff  in  pursuit  of  a 
Mexican  criminal,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  a 
ditch.  Ollinger  wanted  only  to  get  into  a  posi- 
tion where  he  could  shoot  the  man,  but  his 
superior  officer  crawled  alone  up  the  ditch,  and, 
rising  suddenly,  covered  his  man  and  ordered 
him  to  surrender.  The  Mexican  threw  down 
his  gun  and  said  that  he  would  surrender  to  the 
sheriff,  but  that  he  was  sure  Ollinger  would  kill 
him.  This  fear  was  justified.  "When  I 
brought  out  the  man,"  said  the  sheriff,  "Ollin- 
ger came  up  on  the  run,  with  his  cocked  six- 
shooter  in  his  hand.  His  long  hair  was  flying 
behind  him  as  he  ran,  and  I  never  in  my  life 
saw  so  devilish  a  look  on  any  human  being's 


The   Outlaw  1 9 

face.  He  simply  wanted  to  shoot  that  Mexican, 
and  he  chased  him  around  me  until  I  had  to  tell 
him  I  would  kill  him  if  he  did  not  stop."  "Ollin- 
ger  was  a  born  murderer  at  heart,"  the  sheriff 
added  later.  "I  never  slept  out  with  him  that 
I  did  not  watch  him.  After  I  had  more  of  a 
reputation,  I  think  Ollinger  would  have  been 
glad  to  kill  me  for  the  notoriety  of  it.  I  never 
gave  him  a  chance  to  shoot  me  in  the  back  or 
when  I  was  asleep.  Of  course,  you  will  under- 
stand that  we  had  to  use  for  deputies  such  ma- 
terial as  we  could  get." 

Ollinger  was  the  sort  of  imitation  desperado 
that  looks  the  part.  He  wore  his  hair  long 
and  affected  the  ultra-Western  dress,  which  to- 
day is  despised  in  the  West.  He  was  one  of 
the  very  few  men  at  that  time — twenty-five 
years  ago — who  carried  a  knife  at  his  belt. 
When  he  was  in  such  a  town  as  Las  Vegas  or 
Sante  Fe,  he  delighted  to  put  on  a  buckskin 
shirt,  spread  his  hair  out  on  his  shoulders,  and 
to  walk  through  the  streets,  picking  his  teeth 
with  his  knife,  or  once  in  a  while  throwing  it 
in  such  a  way  that  it  would  stick  up  in  a  tree 
or  a  board.  He  presented  an  eye-filling  spec- 
tacle, and  was  indeed  the  ideal  imitation  bad 
man.  This  being  the  case,  there  may  be  in- 


2O  The  Story  of 

terest  in  following  out  his  life  to  its  close,  and 
in  noting  how  the  bearing  of  the  bad  man's 
title  sometimes  exacted  a  very  high  price  of 
the  claimant. 

Ollinger,  who  had  made  many  threats  against 
Billy  the  Kid,  was  very  cordially  hated  by  the 
latter.  Together  with  Deputy  Bell,  of  White 
Oaks,  Ollinger  had  been  appointed  to  guard  the 
Kid  for  two  weeks  previous  to  the  execution  of 
the  death  sentence  which  had  been  imposed  upon 
the  latter.  The  Kid  did  not  want  to  harm  Bell, 
but  he  dearly  hated  Ollinger,  who  never  had 
lost  an  opportunity  to  taunt  him.  Watching  his 
chance,  the  Kid  at  length  killed  both  Bell  and 
Ollinger,  shooting  the  latter  with  Ollinger's 
own  shotgun,  with  which  Ollinger  had  often 
menaced  his  prisoner. 

Other  than  these  two  men,  the  Kid  and  Ollin- 
ger, I  know  of  no  better  types  each  of  his  own 
class.  One  was  a  genuine  bad  man,  and  the 
other  was  the  genuine  imitation  of  a  bad  man. 
They  were  really  as  far  apart  as  the  poles,  and 
they  are  so  held  in  the  tradition  of  that  bloody 
country  to-day.  Throughout  the  West  there 
are  two  sorts  of  wolves — the  coyote  and  the 
gray  wolf.  Either  will  kill,  and  both  are  lovers 
of  blood.  One  is  yellow  at  heart,  and  the  other 


The   Outlaw  2 1 

is  game  all  the  way  through.  In  outward  ap- 
pearance both  are  wolves,  and  in  appearance 
they  sometimes  grade  toward  each  other  so 
closely  that  it  is  hard  to  determine  the  species. 
The  gray  wolf  is  a  warrior  and  is  respected. 
The  coyote  is  a  sneak  and  a  murderer,  and  his 
name  is  a  term  of  reproach  throughout  the 
West. 


22  The  Story  of 


Chapter  III 

The  Land  of  the  Desperado — The  Frontier  of 
the  Old  West — The  Great  Unsettled  Regions 
— The  Desperado  of  the  Mountains — His 
Brother  of  the  Plains — The  Desperado  of  the 
Early  Railroad  Towns.  ::::::: 

THERE  was  once  a  vast  empire,  almost 
unknown,  west  of  the  Missouri  river. 
The  white  civilization  of  this  conti- 
nent was  three  hundred  years  in  reaching  it. 
We  had  won  our  independence  and  taken  our 
place  among  the  nations  of  the  world  before 
our  hardiest  men  had  learned  anything  whatever 
of  this  Western  empire.  We  had  bought  this 
vast  region  and  were  paying  for  it  before  we 
knew  what  we  had  purchased.  The  wise  men 
of  the  East,  leading  men  in  Congress,  said  that 
it  would  be  criminal  to  add  this  territory  to  our 
already  huge  domain,  because  it  could  never  be 
settled.  It  was  not  dreamed  that  civilization 


The   Outlaw  2  3 

would  ever  really  subdue  it.  Even  much  later, 
men  as  able  as  Daniel  Webster  deplored  the 
attempt  to  extend  our  lines  farther  to  the  West, 
saying  that  these  territories  could  not  be  States, 
that  the  East  would  suffer  if  we  widened  our 
West,  and  that  the  latter  could  never  be  of  value 
to  the  union!  So  far  as  this  great  West  was 
concerned,  it  was  spurned  and  held  in  contempt, 
and  it  had  full  right  to  take  itself  as  an  outcast. 
Decreed  to  the  wilderness  forever,  it  could  have 
been  forgiven  for  running  wild.  Denominated 
as  unfit  for  the  occupation  of  the  Eastern  popu- 
lation, it  might  have  been  expected  that  it  would 
gather  to  itself  a  population  all  its  own. 

It  did  gather  such  a  population,  and  in  part 
that  population  was  a  lawless  one.  The  fron- 
tier, clear  across  to  the  Pacific,  has  at  one  time 
or  another  been  lawless ;  but  this  was  not  always 
the  fault  of  the  men  who  occupied  the  frontier. 
The  latter  swept  Westward  with  such  unex- 
ampled swiftness  that  the  machinery  of  the  law 
could  not  always  keep  up  with  them.  Where 
there  are  no  courts,  where  each  man  is  judge 
and  jury  for  himself,  protecting  himself  and  his 
property  by  his  own  arm  alone,  there  always 
have  gathered  also  the  lawless,  those  who  do 
not  wish  the  day  of  law  to  come,  men  who  want 


24  The  Story  of 

license  and  not  liberty,  who  wish  crime  and  not 
lawfulness,  who  want  to  take  what  is  not  theirs 
and  to  enforce  their  own  will  in  their  own 
fashion. 

"There  are  two  states  of  society  perhaps 
equally  bad  for  the  promotion  of  good  morals 
and  virtue — the  densely  populated  city  and  the 
wilderness.  In  the  former,  a  single  individual 
loses  his  identity  in  the  mass,  and,  being  un- 
noticed, is  without  the  view  of  the  public,  and 
can,  to  a  certain  extent,  commit  crimes  with 
impunity.  In  the  latter,  the  population  is  sparse 
and,  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  not  being  ex- 
tended, his  crimes  are  in  a  measure  unobserved, 
or,  if  so,  frequently  power  is  wanting  to  bring 
him  to  justice.  Hence,  both  are  the  resort  of 
desperadoes.  In  the  early  settlement  of  the 
West,  the  borders  were  infested  with  despe- 
radoes flying  from  justice,  suspected  or  con- 
victed felons  escaped  from  the  grasp  of  the  law, 
who  sought  safety.  The  counterfeiter  and  the 
robber  there  found  a  secure  retreat  or  a  new 
theater  for  crime." 

The  foregoing  words  were  written  in  1855 
by  a  historian  to  whom  the  West  of  the  trans- 
Missouri  remained  still  a  sealed  book;  but  they 
cover  very  fitly  the  appeal  of  a  wild  and  un- 


The  Outlaw  25 

known  land  to  a  bold,  a  criminal,  or  an  ad- 
venturous population.  Of  the  trans-Missouri 
as  we  of  to-day  think  of  it,  no  one  can  write 
more  accurately  and  understandingly  than 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  President  of  the  United 
States,  who  thus  describes  the  land  he  knew  and 
loved.* 

"Some  distance  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
stretching  from  Texas  to  North  Dakota,  and 
westward  to  the  Rocky  mountains,  lies  the 
plains  country.  This  is  a  region  of  light  rain- 
fall, where  the  ground  is  clad  with  short  grass, 
while  cottonwood  trees  fringe  the  courses  of 
the  winding  plains  streams;  streams  that  are 
alternately  turbid  torrents  and  mere  dwindling 
threads  of  water.  The  great  stretches  of  natu- 
ral pasture  are  broken  by  gray  sage-brush  plains, 
and  tracts  of  strangely  shaped  and  colored  Bad 
Lands;  sun-scorched  wastes  in  summer,  and  in 
winter  arctic  in  their  iron  desolation.  Beyond 
the  plains  rise  the  Rocky  mountains,  their  flanks 
covered  with  coniferous  woods;  but  the  trees 
are  small,  and  do  not  ordinarily  grow  very 
close  together.  Toward  the  north  the  forest 
becomes  denser,  and  the  peaks  higher;  and  gla- 

*  "The  Wilderness  Hunters."     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York  and 
London. 


26  The  Story  of 

ciers  creep  down  toward  the  valleys  from  the 
fields  of  everlasting  snow.  The  brooks  are 
brawling,  trout-filled  torrents;  the  swift  rivers 
roam  over  rapid  and  cataract,  on  their  way  to 
one  or  other  of  the  two  great  oceans. 

"Southwest  of  the  Rockies  evil  and  terrible 
deserts  stretch  for  leagues  and  leagues,  mere 
waterless  wastes  of  sandy  plain  and  barren 
mountain,  broken  here  and  there  by  narrow 
strips  of  fertile  ground.  Rain  rarely  falls,  and 
there  are  no  clouds  to  dim  the  brazen  sun. 
The  rivers  run  in  deep  canyons,  or  are  swal- 
lowed by  the  burning  sand;  the  smaller  water- 
courses are  dry  throughout  the  greater  part  of 
the  year. 

"Beyond  this  desert  region  rise  the  sunny 
Sierras  of  California,  with  their  flower-clad 
slopes  and  groves  of  giant  trees;  and  north  of 
them,  along  the  coast,  the  rain-shrouded  moun- 
tain chains  of  Oregon  and  Washington,  matted 
with  the  towering  growth  of  the  mighty  ever- 
green forest." 

Such,  then,  was  this  Western  land,  so  long 
the  home  of  the  out-dweller  who  foreran  civili- 
zation, and  who  sometimes  took  matters  of  the 
law  into  his  own  hands.  For  purposes  of  con- 
venience, we  may  classify  him  as  the  bad  man 


The  Outlaw  27 

of  the  mountains  and  the  bad  man  of  the  plains ; 
because  he  was  usually  found  in  and  around  the 
crude  localities  where  raw  resources  in  property 
were  being  developed;  and  because,  previous  to 
the  advent  of  agriculture,  the  two  vast  wilder- 
ness resources  were  minerals  and  cattle.  The 
mines  of  California  and  the  Rockies;  the  cattle 
of  the  great  plains — write  the  story  of  these 
and  you  have  much  of  the  story  of  Western 
desperadoism.  For,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  ideal  desperado  was  one  who  did  not  rob  or 
kill  for  gain,  the  most  usual  form  of  early  des- 
peradoism had  to  do  with  attempts  at  unlaw- 
fully acquiring  another  man's  property. 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  caused  a 
flood  of  bold  men,  good  and  bad,  to  pour  into 
that  remote  region  from  all  corners  of  the  earth. 
Books  could  be  written,  and  have  been  written, 
on  the  days  of  terror  in  California,  when  the 
Vigilantes  took  the  law  into  their  own  hands. 
There  came  the  time  later  when  the  rich  placers 
of  Montana  and  other  territories  were  pour- 
ing out  a  stream  of  gold  rivaling  that  of  the 
days  of  '49;  and  when  a  tide  of  restless  and 
reckless  characters,  resigning  or  escaping  from 
both  armies  in  the  Civil  War,  mingled  with 
many  others  who  heard  also  the  imperious  call 


28  The  Story  of 

of  a  land  of  gold,  and  rolled  westward  across 
the  plains  by  every  means  of  conveyance  or 
locomotion  then  possible  to  man. 

The  next  great  days  of  the  wild  West  were 
the  cattle  days,  which  also  reached  their  height 
soon  after  the  end  of  the  great  war,  when  the 
North  was  seeking  new  lands  for  its  young  men, 
and  the  Southwest  was  hunting  an  outlet  for  the 
cattle  herds,  which  had  enormously  multiplied 
while  their  owners  were  off  at  the  wars.  The 
cattle  country  had  been  passed  over  unnoticed 
by  the  mining  men  for  many  years,  and  dis- 
missed as  the  Great  American  Desert,  as  it  had 
been  named  by  the  first  explorers,  who  were 
almost  as  ignorant  about  the  West  as  Daniel 
Webster  himself.  Into  this  once  barren  land, 
a  vast  region  unsettled  and  without  law,  there 
now  came  pouring  up  the  great  herds  of  cattle 
from  the  South,  in  charge  of  men  wild  as  the 
horned  kine  they  drove.  Here  was  another 
great  wild  land  that  drew,  as  a  magnet,  wild 
men  from  all  parts  of  the  country. 

This  last  home  of  the  bad  man,  the  old  cattle 
range,  is  covered  by  a  passage  from  an  earlier 
work  :* 

*  "  The  Story  of  the  Cowboy,"  by  E.  Hough.     D.  Appleton  &  Co., 
New  York. 


The  Outlaw  29 

"The  braiding  of  a  hundred  minor  pathways, 
the  Long  Trail  lay  like  a  vast  rope  connecting 
the  cattle  country  of  the  South  with  that  of  the 
North.  Lying  loose  or  coiling,  it  ran  for  more 
than  two  thousand  miles  along  the  eastern  ridge 
of  the  Rocky  mountains,  sometimes  close  in  at 
their  feet,  again  hundreds  of  miles  away  across 
the  hard  table-lands  or  the  well-flowered  prai- 
ries. It  traversed  in  a  fair  line  the  vast  land 
of  Texas,  curled  over  the  Indian  Nations,  over 
Kansas,  Colorado,  Nebraska,  Wyoming  and 
Montana,  and  bent  in  wide  overlapping  cir- 
cles as  far  west  as  Utah  and  Nevada;  as  far 
east  as  Missouri,  Iowa,  Illinois;  and  as  far 
north  as  the  British  possessions.  Even  to-day 
you  may  trace  plainly  its  former  course,  from 
its  faint  beginnings  in  the  lazy  land  of  Mexico, 
the  Ararat  of  the  cattle  range.  It  is  distinct 
across  Texas,  and  multifold  still  in  the  Indian 
lands.  Its  many  intermingling  paths  still  scar 
the  iron  surface  of  the  Neutral  Strip,  and  the 
plows  have  not  buried  all  the  old  furrows  in  the 
plains  of  Kansas.  Parts  of  the  path  still  remain 
visible  in  the  mountain  lands  of  the  far  North. 
You  may  see  the  ribbons  banding  the  hillsides 
to-day  along  the  valley  of  the  Stillwater,  and 
along  the  Yellowstone  and  toward  the  source 


30  The  Story  of 

of  the  Missouri.  The  hoof  marks  are  beyond 
the  Musselshell,  over  the  Bad  Lands  and  the 
coulees  and  the  flat  prairies ;  and  far  up  into  the 
land  of  the  long  cold  you  may  see,  even  to-day 
if  you  like,  the  shadow  of  that  unparalleled  path- 
way, the  Long  Trail  of  the  cattle  range.  His- 
tory has  no  other  like  it. 

"This  was  really  the  dawning  of  the  Ameri- 
can cattle  industry.  The  Long  Trail  now  re- 
ceived a  gradual  but  unmistakable  extension, 
always  to  the  north,  and  along  the  line  of  the 
intermingling  of  the  products  of  the  Spanish 
and  the  Anglo-Saxon  civilizations.  The  thrust 
was  always  to  the  north.  Chips  and  flakes  of 
the  great  Southwestern  herd  began  to  be  seen 
in  the  northern  states.  Meantime  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  civilization  was  rolling  swiftly  toward 
the  upper  West.  The  Indians  were  being  driven 
from  the  plains.  A  solid  army  was  pressing  be- 
hind the  vanguard  of  soldier,  scout  and  plains- 
man. The  railroads  were  pushing  out  into  a 
new  and  untracked  empire.  In  1871  over  six 
hundred  thousand  cattle  crossed  the  Red  river 
for  the  Northern  markets.  Abilene,  Newton, 
Wichita,  Ellsworth,  Great  Bend,  "Dodge," 
flared  out  into  a  swift  and  sometime  evil  blos- 
soming. The  Long  Trail,  which  long  ago  had 


The   Outlaw  31 

found  the  black  corn  lands  of  Illinois  and  Mis- 
souri, now  crowded  to  the  West,  until  it  had 
reached  Utah  and  Nevada,  and  penetrated  every 
open  park  and  mesa  and  valley  of  Colorado, 
and  found  all  the  high  plains  of  Wyoming. 
Cheyenne  and  Laramie  became  common  words 
now,  and  drovers  spoke  wisely  of  the  dangers 
of  the  Platte  as  a  year  before  they  had  men- 
tioned those  of  the  Red  river  or  the  Arkansas. 
Nor  did  the  Trail  pause  in  its  irresistible  push 
to  the  north  until  it  had  found  the  last  of  the 
five  great  trans-continental  lines,  far  in  the  Brit- 
ish provinces.  The  Long  Trail  of  the  cattle 
range  was  done.  By  magic  the  cattle  industry 
had  spread  over  the  entire  West." 

By  magic,  also,  the  cattle  industry  called  to 
itself  a  population  unique  and  peculiar.  Here 
were  great  values  to  be  handled  and  guarded. 
The  cowboy  appeared,  summoned  out  of  the 
shadows  by  the  demand  of  evolution.  With 
him  appeared  also  the  cattle  thief,  making  his 
living  on  free  beef,  as  he  had  once  on  the  free 
buffalo  of  the  plains.  The  immense  domain 
of  the  West  was  filled  with  property  held  under 
no  better  or  more  obvious  mark  than  the  imprint 
of  a  hot  iron  on  the  hide.  There  were  no  fences. 
The  owner  might  be  a  thousand  miles  away. 


32  The  Story  of 

The  temptation  to  theft  was  continual  and  ur- 
gent. It  seemed  easy  and  natural  to  take  a 
living  from  these  great  herds  which  no  one 
seemed  to  own  or  to  care  for.  The  "rustler" 
of  the  range  made  his  appearance,  bold,  hardy, 
unprincipled;  and  the  story  of  his  undoing  by 
the  law  is  precisely  that  of  the  finish  of  the 
robbers  of  the  mines  by  the  Vigilantes. 

Now,  too,  came  the  days  of  transition,  which 
have  utterly  changed  all  the  West.  The  rail- 
road sprang  across  this  great  middle  country  of 
the  plains.  The  intent  was  to  connect  the  two 
sides  of  this  continent;  but,  incidentally,  and 
more  swiftly  than  was  planned,  there  was 
builded  a  great  midway  empire  on  the  plains, 
now  one  of  the  grandest  portions  of  America. 

This  building  of  the  trans-continental  lines 
was  a  rude  and  dangerous  work.  It  took  out 
into  the  West  mobs  of  hard  characters,  not 
afraid  of  hard  work  and  hard  living.  These 
men  would  have  a  certain  amount  of  money  as 
wages,  and  would  assuredly  spend  these  wages 
as  they  made  them ;  hence,  the  gambler  followed 
the  rough  settlements  at  the  "head  of  the  rails." 
The  murderer,  the  thief,  the  prostitute,  the 
social  outcast  and  the  fleeing  criminal  went 
with  the  gamblers  and  the  toughs.  Those  were 


The  Outlaw  3  3 

the  days  when  it  was  not  polite  to  ask  a  man 
what  his  name  had  been  back  in  the  States.  A 
very  large  percentage  of  this  population  was 
wild  and  lawless,  and  it  impressed  those  who 
joined  it  instead  of  being  altered  and  im- 
proved by  them.  There  were  no  wilder  days 
in  the  West  than  those  of  the  early  railroad 
building.  Such  towns  as  Newton,  Kansas, 
where  eleven  men  were  killed  in  one  night; 
Fort  Dodge,  where  armed  encounters  among 
cowboys  and  gamblers,  deputies  and  despera- 
does, were  too  frequent  to  attract  attention; 
Caldwell,  on  the  Indian  border;  Hays  City, 
Abilene,  Ellsworth — any  of  a  dozen  cow  camps, 
where  the  head  of  the  rails  caught  the  great 
northern  cattle  drives,  furnished  chapters  lurid 
enough  to  take  volumes  in  telling — indeed,  per- 
haps, gave  that  stamp  to  the  West  which  has 
been  apparently  so  ineradicable. 

These  were  flourishing  times  for  the  Western 
desperado,  and  he  became  famous,  and,  as  it 
were,  typical,  at  about  this  era.  Perhaps  this 
was  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  railroads 
carried  with  them  the  telegraph  and  the  news- 
paper, so  that  records  and  reports  were  made 
of  what  had  for  many  years  gone  unreported. 
Now,  too,  began  the  influx  of  transients,  who 


34  The  Story  of 

saw  the  wild  West  hurriedly  and  wrote  of  it  as  a 
strange  and  dangerous  country.  The  wild  citi- 
zens of  California  and  Montana  in  mining  days 
passed  almost  unnoticed  except  in  fiction.  The 
wild  men  of  the  middle  plains  now  began  to 
have  a  record  in  facts,  or  partial  facts,  as 
brought  to  the  notice  of  the  reading  public 
which  was  seeking  news  of  the  new  lands.  A 
strange  and  turbulent  day  now  drew  swiftly  on. 


The  Outlaw  35 


Chapter  IV 

The  Early  Outlaw — The  Frontier  of  the  Past 
Century — The  Bad  Man  East  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River — The  Great  Western  Land-Pirate, 
John  A.  Murrell — The  Greatest  Slave  Insur- 
rection Ever  Planned.  :::::: 

BEFORE  passing  to  the  review  of  the 
more  modern  days  of  wild  life  on  the 
Western  frontier,  we  shall  find  it  inter- 
esting to  note  a  period  less  known,  but  quite 
as  wild  and  desperate  as  any  of  later  times. 
Indeed,  we  might  also  say  that  our  own  despe- 
radoes could  take  lessons  from  their  ancestors 
of  the  past  generation  who  lived  in  the  forests 
of  the  Mississippi  valley. 

Those  were  the  days  when  the  South  was 
breaking  over  the  Appalachians  and  exploring 
the  middle  and  lower  West.  Adventurers  were 
dropping  down  the  old  river  roads  and  "traces" 
across  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Mississippi, 


36  The  Story  of 

into  Louisiana  and  Texas.  The  flatboat  and 
keel-boat  days  of  the  great  rivers  were  at  their 
height,  and  the  population  was  in  large  part 
transient,  migratory,  and  bold;  perhaps  holding 
a  larger  per  cent,  of  criminals  than  any  Western 
population  since  could  claim.  There  were  no 
organized  systems  of  common  carriers,  no  ac- 
cepted roads  and  highways.  The  great  National 
Road,  from  Wheeling  west  across  Ohio,  paused 
midway  of  Indiana.  Stretching  for  hundreds 
of  miles  in  each  direction  was  the  wilderness, 
wherein  man  had  always  been  obliged  to  fend 
for  himself.  And,  as  ever,  the  wilderness  had 
its  own  wild  deeds.  Flatboats  were  halted  and 
robbed;  caravans  of  travelers  were  attacked; 
lonely  wayfarers  plodding  on  horseback  were 
waylaid  and  murdered.  In  short,  the  story  of 
that  early  day  shows  our  first  frontiersman 
no  novice  in  crime. 

About  twenty  miles  below  the  mouth  of  the 
Wabash  river,  there  was  a  resort  of  robbers 
such  as  might  belong  to  the  most  lurid  dime- 
novel  list — the  famous  Cave-in-the-Rock,  in  the 
bank  of  the  Ohio  river.  This  cavern  was  about 
twenty-five  feet  in  height  at  its  visible  opening, 
and  it  ran  back  into  the  bluff  two  hundred  feet, 
with  a  width  of  eighty  feet.  The  floor  of  this 


The  Outlaw  37 

natural  cavern  was  fairly  flat,  so  that  it  could 
be  used  as  a  habitation.  From  this  lower  cave 
a  sort  of  aperture  led  up  to  a  second  one,  imme- 
diately above  it  in  the  bluff  wall,  and  these  two 
natural  retreats  of  wild  animals  offered  attrac- 
tions to  wild  men  which  were  not  unaccepted. 
It  was  here  that  there  dwelt  for  some  time  the 
famous  robber  Meason,  or  Mason,  who  terror- 
ized the  flatboat  trade  of  the  Ohio  at  about 
1800.  Meason  was  a  robber  king,  a  giant  in 
stature,  and  a  man  of  no  ordinary  brains.  He 
had  associated  with  him  his  two  sons  and  a 
few  other  hard  characters,  who  together  made  a 
band  sufficiently  strong  to  attack  any  party  of 
the  size  usually  making  up  the  boat  companies 
of  that  time,  or  the  average  family  traveling, 
mounted  or  on  foot,  through  the  forest-covered 
country  of  the  Ohio  valley.  Meason  killed  and 
pillaged  pretty  much  as  he  liked  for  a  term  of 
years,  but  as  travel  became  too  general  along 
the  Ohio,  he  removed  to  the  wilder  country 
south  of  that  stream,  and  began  to  operate  on 
the  old  "Natchez  and  Nashville  Trace,"  one  of 
the  roadways  of  the  South  at  that  time,  when 
the  Indian  lands  were  just  opening  to  the  early 
settlers.  Lower  Tennessee  and  pretty  much  all 
of  Mississippi  made  his  stamping-grounds,  and 


38  The  Story  of 

his  name  became  a  terror  there,  as  it  had  been 
along  the  Ohio.  The  governor  of  the  State  of 
Mississippi  offered  a  reward  for  his  capture, 
dead  or  alive ;  but  for  a  long  time  he  escaped  all 
efforts  at  apprehension.  Treachery  did  the 
work,  as  it  has  usually  in  bringing  such  bold  and 
dangerous  men  to  book.  Two  members  of  his 
gang  proved  traitors  to  their  chief.  Seizing 
an  opportunity  they  crept  behind  him  and 
drove  a  tomahawk  into  his  brain.  They  cut 
off  the  head  and  took  it  along  as  proof;  but 
as  they  were  displaying  this  at  the  seat  of 
government,  the  town  of  Washington,  they 
themselves  were  recognized  and  arrested,  and 
were  later  tried  and  executed;  which  ended  the 
Meason  gang,  one  of  the  early  and  once  famous 
desperado  bands. 

From  the  earliest  days  there  have  been  border 
counterfeiters  of  coin.  One  of  the  first  and 
most  remarkable  was  the  noted  Sturdevant,  who 
lived  in  lower  Illinois,  near  the  Ohio  river,  in 
the  first  quarter  of  the  last  century.  Sturdevant 
was  also  something  of  a  robber  king,  for  he 
could  at  any  time  wind  his  horn  and  summon 
to  his  side  a  hundred  armed  men.  He  was 
ostensibly  a  steady  farmer,  and  lived  comfort- 
ably, with  a  good  corps  of  servants  and  tenants 


The  Outlaw  39 

about  him ;  but  his  ablest  assistants  did  not  dwell 
so  close  to  him.  He  had  an  army  of  confeder- 
ates all  over  the  middle  West  and  South,  and 
issued  more  counterfeit  money  than  any  man 
before,  and  probably  than  any  man  since.  He 
always  exacted  a  regular  price  for  his  money — 
sixteen  dollars  for  a  hundred  in  counterfeit — 
and  such  was  the  looseness  of  currency  matters 
at  that  time  that  he  found  many  willing  to  take 
a  chance  in  his  trade.  He  never  allowed  any 
confederate  to  pass  a  counterfeit  bill  in  his  own 
state,  or  in  any  other  way  to  bring  himself 
under  the  surveillance  of  local  law;  and  they 
were  all  obliged  to  be  especially  circumspect 
in  the  county  where  they  lived.  He  was  a 
very  smug  sort  of  villain,  in  the  trade  strictly 
for  revenue,  and  he  was  so  careful  that  he  was 
never  caught  by  the  law,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  it  was  known  that  his  farm  was  the  source 
of  a  flood  of  spurious  money.  He  was  finally 
"regulated"  by  the  citizens,  who  arose  and  made 
him  leave  the  country.  This  was  one  of  the 
early  applications  of  lynch  law  in  the  West.  Its 
results  were,  as  usual,  salutary.  There  was  no 
more  counterfeiting  in  that  region. 

A  very  noted  desperado  of  these  early  days 
was  Harpe,  or  Big  Harpe,  as  he  was  called,  to 


40  The  Story  of 

distinguish  him  from  his  brother  and  associate, 
Little  Harpe.  Big  Harpe  made  a  wide  region 
of  the  Ohio  valley  dangerous  to  travelers.  The 
events  connected  with  his  vicious  life  are  thus 
given  by  that  always  interesting  old-time  chroni- 
cler, Henry  Howe: 

"In  the  fall  of  the  year  1801  or  1802,  a  com- 
pany consisting  of  two  men  and  three  women 
arrived  in  Lincoln  county,  Ky.,  and  encamped 
about  a  mile  from  the  present  town  of  Stan- 
ford. The  appearance  of  the  individuals  com- 
posing this  party  was  wild  and  rude  in  the 
extreme.  The  one  who  seemed  to  be  the  leader 
of  the  band  was  above  the  ordinary  stature  of 
men.  His  frame  was  bony  and  muscular,  his 
breast  broad,  his  limbs  gigantic.  His  clothing 
was  uncouth  and  shabby,  his  exterior  weather- 
beaten  and  dirty,  indicating  continual  exposure 
to  the  elements,  and  designating  him  as  one 
who  dwelt  far  from  the  habitations  of  men, 
and  mingled  not  in  the  courtesies  of  civilized 
life.  His  countenance  was  bold  and  ferocious, 
and  exceedingly  repulsive,  from  its  strongly 
marked  expression  of  villainy.  His  face,  which 
was  larger  than  ordinary,  exhibited  the  lines 
of  ungovernable  passion,  and  the  complexion 
announced  that  the  ordinary  feelings  of  the 


The   Outlaw  41 

human  breast  were  in  him  extinguished.  In- 
stead of  the  healthy  hue  which  indicates  the 
social  emotions,  there  was  a  livid,  unnatural 
redness,  resembling  that  of  a  dried  and  lifeless 
skin.  His  eye  was  fearless  and  steady,  but 
it  was  also  artful  and  audacious,  glaring  upon 
the  beholder  with  an  unpleasant  fixedness  and 
brilliancy,  like  that  of  a  ravenous  animal  gloat- 
ing on  its  prey.  He  wore  no  covering  on  his 
head,  and  the  natural  protection  of  thick,  coarse 
hair,  of  a  fiery  redness,  uncombed  and  matted, 
gave  evidence  of  long  exposure  to  the  rudest 
visitations  of  the  sunbeam  and  the  tempest.  He 
was  armed  with  a  rifle,  and  a  broad  leathern 
belt,  drawn  closely  around  his  waist,  supported 
a  knife  and  a  tomahawk.  He  seemed,  in  short, 
an  outlaw,  destitute  of  all  the  nobler  sympathies 
of  human  nature,  and  prepared  at  all  points  of 
assault  or  defense.  The  other  man  was  smaller 
in  size  than  him  who  lead  the  party,  but  simi- 
larly armed,  having  the  same  suspicious  ex- 
terior, and  a  countenance  equally  fierce  and 
sinister.  The  females  were  coarse  and  wretch- 
edly attired. 

"These  men  stated  in  answer  to  the  inquiry 
of  the  inhabitants,  that  their  name  was  Harpe, 
and  that  they  were  emigrants  from  North  Caro- 


42  The  Story  of 

lina.  They  remained  at  their  encampment  the 
greater  part  of  two  days  and  a  night,  spending 
the  time  in  rioting,  drunkenness  and  debauchery. 
When  they  left,  they  took  the  road  leading  to 
Green  river.  The  day  succeeding  their  depar- 
ture, a  report  reached  the  neighborhood  that 
a  young  gentleman  of  wealth  from  Virginia, 
named  Lankford,  had  been  robbed  and  mur- 
dered on  what  was  then  called  and  is  still  known 
as  the  "Wilderness  Road/'  which  runs  through 
the  Rock-castle  hills.  Suspicion  immediately 
fixed  upon  the  Harpes  as  the  perpetrators,  and 
Captain  Ballenger  at  the  head  of  a  few  bold  and 
resolute  men,  started  in  pursuit.  They  experi- 
enced great  difficulty  in  following  their  trail, 
owing  to  a  heavy  fall  of  snow,  which  obliterated 
most  of  their  tracks,  but  finally  came  upon  them 
while  encamped  in  a  bottom  on  Green  river, 
near  the  spot  where  the  town  of  Liberty  now 
stands.  At  first  they  made  a  show  of  resistance, 
but  upon  being  informed  that  if  they  did  not 
immediately  surrender,  they  would  be  shot 
down,  they  yielded  themselves  prisoners.  They 
were  brought  back  to  Stanford,  and  there  ex- 
amined. Among  their  effects  were  found  some 
fine  linen  shirts,  marked  with  the  initials  of 
Lankford.  One  had  been  pierced  by  a  bullet 


The  Outlaw  43 

and  was  stained  with  blood.  They  had  also  a 
considerable  sum  of  money  in  gold.  It  was 
afterward  ascertained  that  this  was  the  kind  of 
money  Lankford  had  with  him.  The  evidence 
against  them  being  thus  conclusive,  they  were 
confined  in  the  Stanford  jail,  but  were  after- 
ward sent  for  trial  to  Danville,  where  the  dis- 
trict court  was  in  session.  Here  they  broke 
jail,  and  succeeded  in  making  their  escape. 

uThey  were  next  heard  of  in  Adair  county, 
near  Columbia.  In  passing  through  the  coun- 
try, they  met  a  small  boy,  the  son  of  Colonel 
Trabue,  with  a  pillow-case  of  meal  or  flour,  an 
article  they  probably  needed.  This  boy,  it  is 
supposed  they  robbed  and  then  murdered,  as 
he  was  never  afterward  heard  of.  Many  years 
afterward  human  bones  answering  the  size  of 
Colonel  Trabue's  son  at  the  time  of  his  dis- 
appearance, were  found  in  a  sink  hole  near  the 
place  where  he  was  said  to  have  been  murdered. 

uThe  Harpes  still  shaped  their  course  toward 
the  mouth  of  Green  river,  marking  their  path  by 
murders  and  robberies  of  the  most  horrible  and 
brutal  character.  The  district  of  country 
through  which  they  passed  was  at  that  time  very 
thinly  settled,  and  from  this  reason,  their  out- 
rages went  unpunished.  They  seemed  inspired 


44  The  Story  of 

with  the  deadliest  hatred  against  the  whole 
human  race,  and  such  was  their  implacable  mis- 
anthropy, that  they  were  known  to  kill  where 
there  was  no  temptation  to  rob.  One  of  their 
victims  was  a  little  girl,  found  at  some  distance 
from  her  home,  whose  tender  age  and  helpless- 
ness would  have  been  protection  against  any  but 
incarnate  fiends.  The  last  dreadful  act  of  bar- 
barity, which  led  to  their  punishment  and  ex- 
pulsion from  the  country,  exceeded  in  atrocity 
all  the  others. 

"Assuming  the  guise  of  Methodist  preachers, 
they  obtained  lodgings  one  night  at  a  solitary 
house  on  the  road.  Mr.  Stagall,  the  master 
of  the  house,  was  absent,  but  they  found  his 
wife  and  children,  and  a  stranger,  who,  like 
themselves,  had  stopped  for  the  night.  Here 
they  conversed  and  made  inquiries  about  the 
two  noted  Harpes  who  were  represented  as 
prowling  about  the  country.  When  they  retired 
to  rest,  they  contrived  to  secure  an  axe,  which 
they  carried  with  them  into  their  chamber.  In 
the  dead  of  night,  they  crept  softly  down  stairs, 
and  assassinated  the  whole  family,  together  with 
the  stranger,  in  their  sleep,  and  then  setting  fire 
to  the  house,  made  their  escape.  When  Stagall 
returned,  he  found  no  wife  to  welcome  him; 


The  Outlaw  45 

no  home  to  receive  him.  Distracted  with  grief 
and  rage,  he  turned  his  horse's  head  from  the 
smoldering  ruins,  and  repaired  to  the  house  of 
Captain  John  Leeper.  Leeper  was  one  of  the 
most  powerful  men  in  his  day,  and  fearless  as 
powerful.  Collecting  four  or  five  men  well 
armed,  they  mounted  and  started  in  pursuit  of 
vengeance.  It  was  agreed  that  Leeper  should 
attack  'Big  Harpe,'  leaving  'Little  Harpe'  to 
be  disposed  of  by  Stagall.  The  others  were 
to  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  assist  Leeper 
and  Stagall,  as  circumstances  might  require. 

"This  party  found  the  women  belonging  to 
the  Harpes,  attending  to  their  little  camp  by  the 
roadside;  the  men  having  gone  aside  into  the 
woods  to  shoot  an  unfortunate  traveler,  of  the 
name  of  Smith,  who  had  fallen  into  their  hands, 
and  whom  the  women  had  begged  might  not  be 
dispatched  before  their  eyes.  It  was  this  halt 
that  enabled  the  pursuers  to  overtake  them. 
The  women  immediately  gave  the  alarm,  and 
the  miscreants  mounting  their  horses,  which 
were  large,  fleet  and  powerful,  fled  in  separate 
directions.  Leeper  singled  out  the  'Big  Harpe,' 
and  being  better  mounted  than  his  companions, 
soon  left  them  far  behind.  'Little  Harpe' 
succeeded  in  escaping  from  Stagall,  and  he, 


46  The  Story  of 

with  the  rest  of  his  companions,  turned  and  fol- 
lowed on  the  track  of  Leeper  and  the  'Big 
Harpe.'  After  a  chase  of  about  nine  miles, 
Leeper  came  within  gun-shot  of  the  latter  and 
fired.  The  ball  entering  his  thigh,  passed 
through  it  and  penetrated  his  horse  and  both 
fell.  Harpe's  gun  escaped  from  his  hand  and 
rolled  some  eight  or  ten  feet  down  the  bank. 
Reloading  his  rifle,  Leeper  ran  to  where  the 
wounded  outlaw  lay  weltering  in  his  blood,  and 
found  him  with  one  thigh  broken,  and  the  other 
crushed  beneath  his  horse.  Leeper  rolled  the 
horse  away,  and  set  Harpe  in  an  easier  position. 
The  robber  begged  that  he  might  not  be  killed. 
Leeper  told  him  that  he  had  nothing  to  fear 
from  him,  but  that  Stagall  was  coming  up,  and 
could  not  probably  be  restrained.  Harpe  ap- 
peared very  much  frightened  at  hearing  this, 
and  implored  Leeper  to  protect  him.  In  a  few 
moments,  Stagall  appeared,  and  without  utter- 
ing a  word,  raised  his  rifle  and  shot  Harpe 
through  the  head.  They  then  severed  the  head 
from  the  body,  and  stuck  it  upon  a  pole  where 
the  road  crosses  the  creek,  from  which  the  place 
was  then  named  and  is  yet  called  Harpe's  Head. 
Thus  perished  one  of  the  boldest  and  most  noted 
freebooters  that  has  ever  appeared  in  America. 


The  Outlaw  47 

Save  courage,  he  was  without  one  redeeming 
quality,  and  his  death  freed  the  country  from  a 
terror  which  had  long  paralyzed  its  boldest 
spirits. 

"The  Tittle  Harpe'  afterward  joined  the 
band  of  Meason,  and  became  one  of  his  most 
valuable  assistants  in  the  dreadful  trade  of  rob- 
bery and  murder.  He  was  one  of  the  two  ban- 
dits that,  tempted  by  the  reward  for  their 
leader's  head,  murdered  him,  and  eventually 
themselves  suffered  the  penalty  of  the  law  as 
previously  related." 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  the  first  quarter  of 
the  last  century  on  the  frontier  was  not  without 
its  own  interest.  The  next  decade,  or  that  end- 
ing about  1840,  however,  offered  a  still  greater 
instance  of  outlawry,  one  of  the  most  famous 
ones  indeed  of  American  history,  although  lit- 
tle known  to-day.  This  had  to  do  with  that 
genius  in  crime,  John  A.  Murrell,  long  known 
as  the  great  Western  land-pirate;  and  surely 
no  pirate  of  the  seas  was  ever  more  enterprising 
or  more  dangerous. 

Murrell  was  another  man  who,  in  a  decent 
walk  of  life,  would  have  been  called  great.  He 
had  more  than  ordinary  energy  and  intellect. 
He  was  not  a  mere  brute,  but  a  shrewd,  cunning, 


48  The  Story  of 

scheming  man,  hesitating  at  no  crime  on  earth, 
yet  animated  by  a  mind  so  bold  that  mere  per- 
sonal crime  was  not  enough  for  him.  When  it 
is  added  that  he  had  a  gang  of  robbers  and 
murderers  associated  with  him  who  were  said  to 
number  nearly  two  thousand  men,  and  who  were 
scattered  over  the  entire  South  below  the  Ohio 
river,  it  may  be  seen  how  bold  were  his  plans; 
and  his  ability  may  further  be  shown  in  the 
fact  that  for  years  these  men  lived  among  and 
mingled  with  their  fellows  in  civil  life,  unknown 
and  unsuspected.  Some  of  them  were  said  to 
have  been  of  the  best  families  of  the  land;  and 
even  yet  there  come  to  light  strange  and  roman- 
tic tales,  perhaps  not  wholly  true,  of  death-bed 
confessions  of  men  prominent  in  the  South  who 
admitted  that  once  they  belonged  to  Murrell's 
gang,  but  had  later  repented  and  reformed.  A 
prominent  Kentucky  lawyer  was  one  of  these. 
Murrell  and  his  confederates  would  steal 
horses  and  mules,  or  at  least  the  common  class, 
or  division,  known  as  the  "strikers,"  would  do 
so,  although  the  members  of  the  Grand  Coun- 
cil would  hardly  stoop  to  so  petty  a  crime.  For 
them  was  reserved  the  murdering  of  travelers 
or  settlers  who  were  supposed  to  have  money, 
and  the  larger  operations  of  negro  stealing. 


The  Outlaw  49 

The  theft  of  slaves,  the  claiming  of  the  run- 
away rewards,  the  later  re-stealing  and  re-selling 
and  final  killing  of  the  negro  in  order  to  destroy 
the  evidence,  are  matters  which  M urrell  reduced 
to  a  system  that  has  no  parallel  in  the  criminal 
records  of  the  country.  But  not  even  here  did 
this  daring  outlaw  pause.  It  was  not  enough 
to  steal  a  negro  here  and  there,  and  to  make  a 
few  thousand  dollars  out  of  each  negro  so  han- 
dled. The  whole  state  of  organized  society 
was  to  be  overthrown  by  means  of  this  same 
black  population.  So  at  least  goes  one  story 
of  his  life.  We  know  of  several  so-called  black 
insurrections  that  were  planned  at  one  time  or 
another  in  the  South — as,  for  instance,  the  Tur- 
ner insurrection  in  Virginia;  but  this  Murrell 
enterprise  was  the  biggest  of  them  all. 

The  plan  was  to  have  the  uprising  occur  all 
over  the  South  on  the  same  day,  Christmas  of 
1835.  The  blacks  were  to  band  together  and 
march  on  the  settlements,  after  killing  all  the 
whites  on  the  farms  where  they  worked.  There 
they  were  to  fall  under  the  leadership  of  Mur- 
rell's  lieutenants,  who  were  to  show  them  how 
to  sack  the  stores,  to  kill  the  white  merchants, 
and  take  the  white  women.  The  banks  of  all 
the  Southern  towns  were  to  become  the  property 


50  The  Story  of 

of  Murrell  and  his  associates.  In  short,  at  one 
stroke,  the  entire  system  of  government,  which 
had  been  established  after  such  hard  effort  in 
that  fierce  wilderness  along  the  old  Southern 
"traces,"  was  to  be  wiped  out  absolutely.  The 
land  was  indeed  to  be  left  without  law.  The 
entire  fruits  of  organized  society  were  to  be- 
long to  a  band  of  outlaws.  This  was  proba- 
bly the  best  and  boldest  instance  ever  seen  of 
the  narrowness  of  the  line  dividing  society  and 
savagery. 

Murrell  was  finally  brought  to  book  by  his 
supposed  confederate,  Virgil  A.  Stewart,  the 
spy,  who  went  under  the  name  of  Hues,  whose 
evidence,  after  many  difficulties,  no  doubt  re- 
sulted in  the  breaking  up  of  this,  the  largest 
and  most  dangerous  band  of  outlaws  this  coun- 
try ever  saw;  although  Stewart  himself  was  a 
vain  and  ambitious  notoriety  seeker.  Suppos- 
ing himself  safe,  Murrell  gave  Stewart  a  de- 
tailed story  of  his  life.  This  was  later  used 
in  evidence  against  him ;  and  although  Stewart's 
account  needs  qualification,  it  is  the  best  and 
fullest  record  obtainable  to-day.* 

"I  was  born  in  Middle  Tennessee,"  Murrell 

*  "  Life  and  Adventures  of  Virgil  A.  Stewart."     Harper  and  Brothers, 
New  York.      1836. 


The   Outlaw  51 

personally  stated.  "My  parents  had  not  much 
property,  but  they  were  intelligent  people;  and 
my  father  was  an  honest  man  I  expect,  and  tried 
to  raise  me  honest,  but  I  think  none  the  better 
of  him  for  that.  My  mother  was  of  the  pure 
grit;  she  learned  me  and  all  her  children  to 
steal  as  soon  as  we  could  walk  and  would  hide 
for  us  whenever  she  could.  At  ten  years  old 
I  was  not  a  bad  hand.  The  first  good  haul  I 
made  was  from  a  pedler  who  lodged  at  my 
father's  house  one  night. 

"I  began  to  look  after  larger  spoils  and  ran 
several  fine  horses.  By  the  time  I  was  twenty  I 
began  to  acquire  considerable  character,  and 
concluded  to  go  off  and  do  my  speculation  where 
I  was  not  known,  and  go  on  a  larger  scale;  so 
I  began  to  see  the  value  of  having  friends  in 
this  business.  I  made  several  associates;  I  had 
been  acquainted  with  some  old  hands  for  a  long 
time,  who  had  given  me  the  names  of  some  royal 
fellows  between  Nashville  and  Tuscaloosa,  and 
between  Nashville  and  Savannah  in  the  state 
of  Georgia  and  many  other  places.  Myself 
and  a  fellow  by  the  name  of  Crenshaw  gathered 
four  good  horses  and  started  for  Georgia.  We 
got  in  company  with  a  young  South  Carolinian 
just  before  we  reached  Cumberland  Mountain, 


52  The  Story  of 

and  Crenshaw  soon  knew  all  about  his  business. 
He  had  been  to  Tennessee  to  buy  a  drove  of 
hogs,  but  when  he  got  there  pork  was  dearer 
than  he  calculated,  and  he  declined  purchasing. 
We  concluded  he  was  a  prize.  Crenshaw 
winked  at  me;  I  understood  his  idea.  Cren- 
shaw had  traveled  the  road  before,  but  I  never 
had;  we  had  traveled  several  miles  on  the 
mountain,  when  we  passed  near  a  great  preci- 
pice; just  before  we  passed  it,  Crenshaw  asked 
me  for  my  whip,  which  had  a  pound  of  lead 
in  the  butt;  I  handed  it  to  him,  and  he  rode  up 
by  the  side  of  the  South  Carolinian,  and  gave 
him  a  blow  on  the  side  of  the  head,  and  tum- 
bled him  from  his  horse ;  we  lit  from  our  horses 
and  fingered  his  pockets ;  we  got  twelve  hundred 
and  sixty-two  dollars.  Crenshaw  said  he  knew 
of  a  place  to  hide  him,  and  gathered  him  under 
the  arms,  and  I  by  his  feet,  and  conveyed  him 
to  a  deep  crevice  in  the  brow  of  the  precipice, 
and  tumbled  him  into  it;  he  went  out  of  sight. 
We  then  tumbled  in  his  saddle,  and  took  his 
horse  with  us,  which  was  worth  two  hundred 
dollars.  We  turned  our  course  for  South  Ala- 
bama, and  sold  our  horse  for  a  good  price. 
We  frolicked  for  a  week  or  more  and  were  the 
highest  larks  you  ever  saw.  We  commenced 


The  Outlaw  5  3 

sporting  and  gambling,  and  lost  every  cent  of 
our  money. 

"We  were  forced  to  resort  to  our  profession 
for  a  second  raise.  We  stole  a  negro  man,  and 
pushed  for  Mississippi.  We  had  promised  him 
that  we  would  conduct  him  to  a  free  state  if  he 
would  let  us  sell  him  once  as  we  went  on  our 
way;  we  also  agreed  to  give  him  part  of  the 
money.  We  sold  him  for  six  hundred  dollars; 
but,  when  we  went  to  start,  the  negro  seemed 
to  be  very  uneasy,  and  appeared  to  doubt  our 
coming  back  for  him  as  we  had  promised.  We 
lay  in  a  creek  bottom,  not  far  from  the  place 
where  we  had  sold  the  negro,  all  the  next  day, 
and  after  dark  we  went  to  the  china-tree  in  the 
lane  where  we  were  to  meet  Tom;  he  had  been 
waiting  for  some  time.  He  mounted  his  horse, 
and  we  pushed  with  him  a  second  time.  We 
rode  twenty  miles  that  night  to  the  house  of  a 
friendly  speculator.  I  had  seen  him  in  Ten- 
nessee, and  had  given  him  several  lifts.  He 
gave  me  his  place  of  residence,  that  I  might  find 
him  when  I  was  passing.  He  is  quite  rich,  and 
one  of  the  best  kind  of  fellows.  Our  horses 
were  fed  as  much  as  they  would  eat,  and  two 
of  them  were  foundered  the  next  morning.  We 
were  detained  a  few  days,  and  during  that  time 


54  The  Story  of 

our  friend  went  to  a  little  village  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  saw  the  negro  advertised,  with 
a  description  of  the  two  men  of  whom  he  had 
been  purchased,  and  with  mention  of  them  as 
suspicious  personages.  It  was  rather  squally 
times,  but  any  port  in  a  storm;  we  took  the 
negro  that  night  to  the  bank  of  a  creek  which 
runs  by  the  farm  of  our  friend,  and  Crenshaw 
shot  him  through  the  head.  We  took  out  his 
entrails  and  sunk  him  in  the  creek;  our  friend 
furnished  us  with  one  fine  horse,  and  we  left 
him  our  foundered  horses.  We  made  our  way 
through  the  Choctaw  and  Chickasaw  Nations, 
and  then  to  Williamson  county,  in  this  state. 
We  should  have  made  a  fine  trip  if  we  had 
taken  care  of  all  we  got. 

"I  had  become  a  considerable  libertine,  and 
when  I  returned  home  I  spent  a  few  months 
rioting  in  all  the  luxuries  of  forbidden  pleas- 
ures with  the  girls  of  my  acquaintance.  My 
stock  of  cash  was  soon  gone,  and  I  put  to  my 
shift  for  more.  I  commenced  with  horses,  and 
ran  several  from  the  adjoining  counties.  I  had 
got  associated  with  a  young  man  who  had  pro- 
fessed to  be  a  preacher  among  the  Methodists, 
and  a  sharper  he  was;  he  was  as  slick  on  the 
tongue  as  goose-grease.  I  took  my  first  lessons 


The  Outlaw  5  5 

in  divinity  from  this  young  preacher.  He  was 
highly  respected  by  all  who  knew  him,  and  well 
calculated  to  please ;  he  first  put  me  in  the  notion 
of  preaching,  to  aid  me  in  my  speculations. 

"I  got  into  difficulty  about  a  mare  that  I  had 
taken,  and  was  imprisoned  for  near  three  years. 
I  shifted  it  from  court  to  court,  but  was  at  last 
found  guilty,  and  whipped.  During  my  con- 
finement I  read  the  scriptures,  and  became  a 
good  judge  of  theology.  I  had  not  neglected 
the  criminal  laws  for  many  years  before  that 
time.  When  they  turned  me  loose  I  was  pre- 
pared for  anything;  I  wanted  to  kill  all  but 
those  of  my  own  grit ;  and  I  will  die  by  the  side 
of  one  of  them  before  I  will  desert. 

"My  next  speculation  was  in  the  Choctaw 
region ;  myself  and  brother  stole  two  fine  horses, 
and  made  our  way  into  this  country.  We  got 
in  with  an  old  negro  man  and  his  wife,  and 
three  sons,  to  go  off  with  us  to  Texas,  and 
promised  them  that,  if  they  would  work  for  us 
one  year  after  we  got  there,  we  would  let  them 
go  free,  and  told  them  many  fine  stories.  The 
old  negro  became  suspicious  that  we  were  going 
to  sell  him,  and  grew  quite  contrary;  so  we 
landed  one  day  by  the  side  of  an  island,  and  I 
requested  him  to  go  with  me  round  the  point 


56  The  Story  of 

of  the  island  to  hunt  a  good  place  to  catch  some 
fish.  After  we  were  hidden  from  our  company 
I  shot  him  through  the  head,  and  then  ripped 
open  his  belly  and  tumbled  him  into  the  river. 
I  returned  to  my  company,  and  told  them  that 
the  negro  had  fallen  into  the  river,  and  that  he 
never  came  up  after  he  went  under.  We  landed 
fifty  miles  above  New  Orleans,  and  went  into 
the  country  and  sold  our  negroes  to  a  French- 
man for  nineteen  hundred  dollars. 

"We  went  from  where  we  sold  the  negroes 
to  New  Orleans,  and  dressed  ourselves  like 
young  lords.  I  mixed  with  the  loose  characters 
at  the  swamp  every  night.  One  night,  as  I  was 
returning  to  the  tavern  where  I  boarded,  I  was 
stopped  by  two  armed  men,  who  demanded  my 
money.  I  handed  them  my  pocketbook,  and 
observed  that  I  was  very  happy  to  meet  with 
them,  as  we  were  all  of  the  same  profession. 
One  of  them  observed,  'D — d  if  I  ever  rob  a 
brother  chip.  We  have  had  our  eyes  on  you 
and  the  man  that  has  generally  come  with  you 
for  several  nights;  we  saw  so  much  rigging  and 
glittering  jewelry,  that  we  concluded  you  must 
be  some  wealthy  dandy,  with  a  surplus  of  cash; 
and  had  determined  to  rid  you  of  the  trouble 
of  some  of  it;  but,  if  you  are  a  robber,  here  is 


The  Outlaw  57 

your  pocketbook,  and  you  must  go  with  us  to- 
night, and  we  will  give  you  an  introduction  to 
several  fine  fellows  of  the  block ;  but  stop,  do 
you  understand  this  motion?'  I  answered  it, 
and  thanked  them  for  their  kindness,  and  turned 
with  them.  We  went  to  old  Mother  Surgick's, 
and  had  a  real  frolic  with  her  girls.  That  night 
was  the  commencement  of  my  greatness  in  what 
the  world  calls  villainy.  The  two  fellows  who 
robbed  me  were  named  Haines  and  Phelps; 
they  made  me  known  to  all  the  speculators  that 
visited  New  Orleans,  and  gave  me  the  name 
of  every  fellow  who  would  speculate  that  lived 
on  the  Mississippi  river,  and  many  of  its  tribu- 
tary streams,  from  New  Orleans  up  to  all  the 
large  Western  cities. 

"I  had  become  acquainted  with  a  Kentuckian, 
who  boarded  at  the  same  tavern  I  did,  and  I 
suspected  he  had  a  large  sum  of  money;  I  felt 
an  inclination  to  count  it  for  him  before  I  left 
the  city ;  so  I  made  my  notions  known  to  Phelps 
and  my  other  new  comrades,  and  concerted  our 
plan.  I  was  to  get  him  off  to  the  swamp  with 
me  on  a  spree,  and  when  we  were  returning  to 
our  lodgings,  my  friends  were  to  meet  us  and 
rob  us  both.  I  had  got  very  intimate  with  the 
Kentuckian,  and  he  thought  me  one  of  the  best 


58  The  Story  of 

fellows  in  the  world.  He  was  very  fond  of 
wine ;  and  I  had  him  well  fumed  with  good  wine 
before  I  made  the  proposition  for  a  frolic. 
When  I  invited  him  to  walk  with  me  he  readily 
accepted  the  invitation.  We  cut  a  few  shines 
with  the  girls,  and  started  to  the  tavern.  We 
were  met  by  a  band  of  robbers,  and  robbed  of 
all  our  money.  The  Kentuckian  was  so  mad 
that  he  cursed  the  whole  city,  and  wished  that 
it  would  all  be  deluged  in  a  flood  of  water  so 
soon  as  he  left  the  place.  I  went  to  my  friends 
the  next  morning,  and  got  my  share  of  the  spoil 
money,  and  my  pocketbook  that  I  had  been 
robbed  of.  We  got  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  of  the  bold  Kentuckian,  which  was 
divided  among  thirteen  of  us. 

"I  commenced  traveling  and  making  all  the 
acquaintances  among  the  speculators  that  I 
could.  I  went  from  New  Orleans  to  Cincinnati, 
and  from  there  I  visited  Lexington,  in  Ken- 
tucky. I  found  a  speculator  about  four  miles 
from  Newport,  who  furnished  me  with  a  fine 
horse  the  second  night  after  I  arrived  at  his 
house.  I  went  from  Lexington  to  Richmond, 
in  Virginia,  and  from  there  I  visited  Charles- 
ton, in  the  State  of  South  Carolina;  and  from 
thence  to  Milledgeville,  by  the  way  of  Savart- 


The   Outlaw  59 

nah  and  Augusta,  in  the  State  of  Georgia.     I 
made  my  way  from  Milledgeville  to  William- 
son county,  the  old  stamping-ground.     In  all 
the    route    I    only    robbed    eleven   men   but    I 
preached  some  fine  sermons,  and  scattered  some 
counterfeit    United    States    paper    among    my 
brethren. 

•  ••••• 

"After  I  returned  home  from  the  first  grand 
circuit  I  made  among  my  speculators,  I  re- 
mained there  but  a  short  time,  as  I  could  not 
rest  when  my  mind  was  not  actively  engaged 
in  some  speculation.  I  commenced  the  founda- 
tion of  this  mystic  clan  on  that  tour,  and  sug- 
gested the  plan  of  exciting  a  rebellion  among 
the  negroes,  as  the  sure  road  to  an  inexhaustible 
fortune  to  all  who  would  engage  in  the  expedi- 
tion. The  first  mystic  sign  which  is  used  by 
this  clan  was  in  use  among  robbers  before  I 
was  born;  and  the  second  had  its  origin  from 
myself,  Phelps,  Haines,  Cooper,  Doris,  Bolton, 
Harris,  Doddridge,  Celly,  Morris,  Walton, 
Depont,  and  one  of  my  brothers,  on  the  sec- 
ond night  after  my  acquaintance  with  them  in 
New  Orleans.  We  needed  a  higher  order  to 
carry  on  our  designs,  and  we  adopted  our  sign, 
and  called  it  the  sign  of  the  Grand  Council  of 


60  The  Story  of 

the  Mystic  Clan ;  and  practised  ourselves  to  give 
and  receive  the  new  sign  to  a  fraction  before 
we  parted;  and,  in  addition  to  this  improve- 
ment, we  invented  and  formed  a  mode  of  cor- 
responding, by  means  of  ten  characters,  mixed 
with  other  matter,  which  has  been  very  con- 
venient on  many  occasions,  and  especially  when 
any  of  us  get  into  difficulties.  I  was  encouraged 
in  my  new  undertaking,  and  my  heart  began  to 
beat  high  with  the  hope  of  being  able  one  day 
to  visit  the  pomp  of  the  Southern  and  Western 
people  in  my  vengeance;  and  of  seeing  their 
cities  and  towns  one  common  scene  of  devasta- 
tion, smoked  walls  and  fragments. 

"1  decoyed  a  negro  man  from  his  master  in 
Middle  Tennessee,  and  sent  him  to  Mill's 
Point  by  a  young  man,  and  I  waited  to  see  the 
movements  of  the  owner.  He  thought  his 
negro  had  run  off.  So  I  started  to  take  pos- 
session of  my  prize.  I  got  another  friend  at 
Mill's  Point  to  take  my  negro  in  a  skiff,  and 
convey  him  to  the  mouth  of  Red  river,  while 
I  took  passage  on  a  steamboat.  I  then  went 
through  the  country  by  land,  and  sold  my  negro 
for  nine  hundred  dollars,  and  the  second  night 
after  I  sold  him  I  stole  him  again,  and  my 
friend  ran  him  to  the  Irish  bayou  in  Texas;  I 


The  Outlaw  61 

followed  on  after  him,  and  sold  my  negro  in 
Texas  for  five  hundred  dollars.  I  then  re- 
solved to  visit  South  America,  and  see  if  there 
was  an  opening  in  that  country  for  a  specula- 
tion ;  I  had  also  concluded  that  I  could  get  some 
strong  friends  in  that  quarter  to  aid  me  in  my 
designs  relative  to  a  negro  rebellion;  but  of  all 
people  in  the  world,  the  Spaniards  are  the  most 
treacherous  and  cowardly;  I  never  want  them 
concerned  in  any  matter  with  me;  I  had  rather 
take  the  negroes  in  this  country  to  fight  than 
a  Spaniard.  I  stopped  in  a  village,  and  passed 
as  a  doctor,  and  commenced  practising  medi- 
cine. I  could  ape  the  doctor  first-rate,  having 
read  Ewel,  and  several  other  works  on  primi- 
tive medicine.  I  became  a  great  favorite  of  an 
old  Catholic;  he  adopted  me  as  his  son  in  the 
faith,  and  introduced  me  to  all  the  best  families 
as  a  young  doctor  from  North  America.  I  had 
been  with  the  old  Catholic  but  a  very  short 
time  before  I  was  a  great  Roman  Catholic,  and 
bowed  to  the  cross,  and  attended  regularly  to 
all  the  ceremonies  of  that  persuasion;  and,  to 
tell  you  the  fact,  Hues,  all  the  Catholic  religion 
needs  to  be  universally  received,  is  to  be  cor- 
rectly represented;  but  you  know  I  care  noth- 
ing for  religion.  I  had  been  with  the  old 


62  The  Story  of 

Catholic  about  three  months,  and  was  getting 
a  heavy  practice,  when  an  opportunity  offered 
for  me  to  rob  the  good  man's  secretary  of  nine 
hundred  and  sixty  dollars  in  gold,  and  I  could 
have  got  as  much  more  in  silver  if  I  could  have 
carried  it.  I  was  soon  on  the  road  for  home 
again;  I  stopped  three  weeks  in  New  Orleans 
as  I  came  home,  and  had  some  high  fun  with 
old  Mother  Surgick's  girls. 

"I  collected  all  my  associates  in  New  Orleans 
at  one  of  my  friend's  houses  in  that  place,  and 
we  sat  in  council  three  days  before  we  got  all 
our  plans  to  our  notion ;  we  then  determined  to 
undertake  the  rebellion  at  every  hazard,  and 
make  as  many  friends  as  we  could  for  that 
purpose.  Every  man's  business  being  assigned 
him,  I  started  for  Natchez  on  foot.  Having 
sold  my  horse  in  New  Orleans  with  the  inten- 
tion of  stealing  another  after  I  started,  I 
walked  four  days,  and  no  opportunity ,  off ered 
for  me  to  get  a  horse.  The  fifth  day,  about 
twelve  o'clock,  I  had  become  very  tired,  and 
stopped  at  a  creek  to  get  some  water  and  rest 
a  little.  While  I  was  sitting  on  a  log,  looking 
down  the  road  I  had  come,  a  man  came  in  sight 
riding  a  good-looking  horse.  The  very  mo- 
ment I  saw  him  I  determined  to  have  his  horse 


The  Outlaw  6  3 

if  he  was  in  the  garb  of  a  traveler.  He  rode 
up,  and  I  saw  from  his  equipage  that  he  was 
a  traveler.  I  arose  from  my  seat  and  drew  an 
elegant  rifle  pistol  on  him,  and  ordered  him  to 
dismount.  He  did  so,  and  I  took  his  horse  by 
the  bridle,  and  pointed  down  the  creek,  and 
ordered  him  to  walk  before  me.  We  went  a 
few  hundred  yards  and  stopped.  I  hitched  his 
horse,  then  made  him  undress  himself,  all  to  his 
shirt  and  drawers,  and  ordered  him  to  turn 
his  back  to  me.  He  asked  me  if  I  was  going 
to  shoot  him.  I  ordered  him  the  second  time 
to  turn  his  back  to  me.  He  said,  'If  you  are  de- 
termined to  kill  me,  let  me  have  time  to  pray 
before  I  die.'  I  told  him  I  had  no  time  to  hear 
him  pray.  He  turned  round  and  dropped  on 
his  knees,  and  I  shot  him  through  the  back  of 
the  head.  I  ripped  open  his  belly,  and  took  out 
his  entrails,  and  sunk  him  in  the  creek.  I  then 
searched  his  pockets,  and  found  four  hundred 
and  one  dollars  and  thirty-seven  cents,  and  a 
number  of  papers  that  I  did  not  take  time  to 
examine.  I  sunk  the  pocketbook  and  papers 
and  his  hat  in  the  creek.  His  boots  were  brand 
new,  and  fitted  me  very  genteelly,  and  I  put 
them  on,  and  sunk  my  old  shoes  in  the  creek 
to  atone  for  them.  I  rolled  up  his  clothes  and 


64  The  Story  of 

put  them  into  his  portmanteau,  as  they  were 
quite  new  cloth  of  the  best  quality.  I  mounted 
as  fine  a  horse  as  ever  I  straddled,  and  directed 
my  course  to  Natchez  in  much  better  style  than 
I  had  been  for  the  last  five  days. 

"I  reached  Natchez,  and  spent  two  days  with 
my  friends  at  that  place  and  the  girls  under  the 
Hill  together.  I  then  left  Natchez  for  the 
Choctaw  nation,  with  the  intention  of  giving 
some  of  them  a  chance  for  their  property.  As 
I  was  riding  along  between  Benton  and  Ran- 
kin,  planning  for  my  designs,  I  was  overtaken 
by  a  tall  and  good-looking  young  man,  riding 
an  elegant  horse,  which  was  splendidly  rigged 
off;  and  the  young  gentleman's  apparel  was  of 
the  gayest  that  could  be  had,  and  his  watch- 
chain  and  other  jewelry  were  of  the  richest  and 
best.  I  was  anxious  to  know  if  he  intended  to 
travel  through  the  Choctaw  nation,  and  soon 
managed  to  learn.  He  said  he  had  been  to  the 
lower  country  with  a  drove  of  negroes,  and 
was  returning  home  to  Kentucky.  We  rode  on, 
and  soon  got  very  intimate  for  strangers,  and 
agreed  to  be  company  through  the  Indian  na- 
tion. We  were  two  fine-looking  men,  and,  to 
hear  us  talk,  we  were  very  rich.  I  felt  him  on 
the  subject  of  speculation,  but  he  cursed  the 


The  Outlaw  65 

speculators,  and  said  he  was  in  a  bad  condi- 
tion to  fall  into  the  hands  of  such  villains,  as 
he  had  the  cash  with  him  that  twenty  negroes 
had  sold  for;  and  that  he  was  very  happy  that 
he  happened  to  get  in  company  with  me  through 
the  nation.  I  concluded  he  was  a  noble  prize, 
and  longed  to  be  counting  his  cash.  At  length 
we  came  into  one  of  those  long  stretches  in  the 
Nation,  where  there  was  no  house  for  twenty 
miles,  on  the  third  day  after  we  had  been  in 
company  with  each  other.  The  country  was 
high,  hilly,  and  broken,  and  no  water;  just 
about  the  time  I  reached  the  place  where  I  in- 
tended to  count  my  companion's  cash,  I  became 
very  thirsty,  and  insisted  on  turning  down  a 
deep  hollow,  or  dale,  that  headed  near  the  road, 
to  hunt  some  water.  We  had  followed  down 
the  dale  for  near  four  hundred  yards,  when  I 
drew  my  pistol  and  shot  him  through.  He  fell 
dead;  I  commenced  hunting  for  his  cash,  and 
opened  his  large  pocketbook,  which  was  stuffed 
very  full ;  and  when  I  began  to  open  it  I  thought 
it  was  a  treasure  indeed;  but  oh!  the  contents 
of  that  book !  it  was  richly  filled  with  the  copies 
of  love-songs,  the  forms  of  love-letters,  and 
some  of  his  own  composition, — but  no  cash. 
I  began  to  cut  off  his  clothes  with  my  knife, 


66  The  Story  of 

and  examine  them  for  his  money.  I  found  four 
dollars  and  a  half  in  change  in  his  pockets,  and 
no  more.  And  is  this  the  amount  for  which 
twenty  negroes  sold?  thought  I.  I  recollected 
his  watch  and  jewelry,  and  I  gathered  them  in; 
his  chain  was  rich  and  good,  but  it  was  swung 
to  an  old  brass  watch.  He  was  a  puff  for  true, 
and  I  thought  all  such  fools  ought  to  die  as 
soon  as  possible.  I  took  his  horse,  and  swapped 
him  to  an  Indian  native  for  four  ponies,  and 
sold  them  on  the  way  home.  I  reached  home,, 
and  spent  a  few  weeks  among  the  girls  of  my 
acquaintance,  in  all  the  enjoyments  that  money 
could  afford. 

"My  next  trip  was  through  Georgia,  South 
Carolina,  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  and  Mary- 
land, and  then  back  to  South  Carolina,  and 
from  there  round  by  Florida  and  Alabama.  I 
began  to  conduct  the  progress  of  my  opera- 
tions, and  establish  my  emissaries  over  the 
country  in  every  direction. 

"I  have  been  going  ever  since  from  one  place 
to  another,  directing  and  managing;  but  I  have 
others  now  as  good  as  myself  to  manage.  This 
fellow,  Phelps,  that  I  was  telling  you  of  before, 
he  is  a  noble  chap  among  the  negroes,  and  he 
wants  them  all  free;  he  knows  how  to  excite 


The  Outlaw  67 

them  as  well  as  any  person;  but  he  will  not  do 
for  a  robber,  as  he  cannot  kill  a  man  unless  he 
has  received  an  injury  from  him  first.  He  is 
now  in  jail  at  Vicksburg,  and  I  fear  will  hang. 
I  went  to  see  him  not  long  since,  but  he  is  so 
strictly  watched  that  nothing  can  be  done.  He 
has  been  in  the  habit  of  stopping  men  on  the 
highway,  and  robbing  them,  and  letting  them 
go  on;  but  that  will  never  do  for  a  robber; 
after  I  rob  a  man  he  will  never  give  evidence 
against  me,  and  there  is  but  one  safe  plan  in  the 
business,  and  that  is  to  kill — if  I  could  not 
afford  to  kill  a  man,  I  would  not  rob. 

"The  great  object  that  we  have  in  contem- 
plation is  to  excite  a  rebellion  among  the  negroes 
throughout  the  slave-holding  states.  Our  plan 
is  to  manage  so  as  to  have  it  commence  every- 
where at  the  same  hour.  We  have  set  on  the 
25th  of  December,  1835,  for  the  time  to  com- 
mence our  operations.  We  design  having  our 
companies  so  stationed  over  the  country,  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  banks  and  large  cities,  that 
when  the  negroes  commence  their  carnage  and 
slaughter,  we  will  have  detachments  to  fire  the 
towns  and  rob  the  banks  while  all  is  confusion 
and  dismay.  The  rebellion  taking  place  every- 
where at  the  same  time,  every  part  of  the  coun- 


68  The  Story  of 

try  will  be  engaged  in  its  own  defence ;  and  one 
part  of  the  country  can  afford  no  relief  to  an- 
other, until  many  places  will  be  entirely  over- 
run by  the  negroes,  and  our  pockets  replenished 
from  the  banks  and  the  desks  of  rich  mer- 
chants' houses.  It  is  true  that  in  many  places 
in  the  slave  states  the  negro  population  is  not 
strong,  and  would  be  easily  overpowered;  but, 
back  them  with  a  few  resolute  leaders  from  our 
clan,  they  will  murder  thousands,  and  huddle 
the  remainder  into  large  bodies  of  stationary 
defence  for  their  own  preservation;  and  then, 
in  many  other  places,  the  black  population  is 
much  the  strongest,  and  under  a  leader  would 
overrun  the  country  before  any  steps  could  be 
taken  to  suppress  them. 

"We  do  not  go  to  every  negro  we  see  and  tell 
him  that  the  negroes  intend  to  rebel  on  the 
night  of  the  25th  of  December,  1835.  We 
find  the  most  vicious  and  wickedly  disposed  on 
large  farms,  and  poison  their  minds  by  telling 
them  how  they  are  mistreated.  When  we  are 
convinced  that  we  have  found  a  blood-thirsty 
devil,  we  swear  him  to  secrecy  and  disclose  to 
him  the  secret,  and  convince  him  that  every 
other  state  and  section  of  country  where  there 
are  any  negroes  intend  to  rebel  and  slay  all  the 


The  Outlaw  69 

whites  they  can  on  the  night  of  the  25th  of  De- 
cember, 1835,  and  assure  him  that  there  are 
thousands  of  white  men  engaged  in  trying  to 
free  them,  who  will  die  by  their  sides  in  battle. 
We  have  a  long  ceremony  for  the  oath,  which 
is  administered  in  the  presence  of  a  terrific  pic- 
ture painted  for  that  purpose,  representing  the 
monster  who  is  to  deal  with  him  should  he  prove 
unfaithful  in  the  engagements  he  has  entered 
into.  This  picture  is  highly  calculated  to  make 
a  negro  true  to  his  trust,  for  he  is  disposed  to  be 
superstitious  at  best. 

"Our  black  emissaries  have  the  promise  of  a 
share  in  the  spoils  we  may  gain,  and  we  prom- 
ise to  conduct  them  to  Texas  should  we  be  de- 
feated, where  they  will  be  free;  but  we  never 
talk  of  being  defeated.  We  always  talk  of  vic- 
tory and  wealth  to  them.  There  is  no  danger 
in  any  man,  if  you  can  ever  get  him  once  impli- 
cated or  engaged  in  a  matter.  That  is  the  way 
we  employ  our  strikers  in  all  things;  we  have 
them  implicated  before  we  trust  them  from  our 
sight. 

"This  may  seem  too  bold,  but  that  is  what  I 
glory  in.  All  the  crimes  I  have  ever  committed 
have  been  of  the  most  daring;  and  I  have  been 
successful  in  all  my  attempts  as  yet;  and  I  am 


jo  The  Story  of 

confident  that  I  will  be  victorious  in  this  matter, 
as  in  the  robberies  which  I  have  in  contempla- 
tion ;  and  I  will  have  the  pleasure  and  honor  of 
seeing  and  knowing  that  by  my  management  I 
have  glutted  the  earth  with  more  human  gore, 
and  destroyed  more  property,  than  any  other 
robber  who  has  ever  lived  in  America,  or  the 
known  world.  I  look  on  the  American  people 
as  my  common  enemy.  My  clan  is  strong, 
brave,  and  experienced,  and  rapidly  increasing 
in  strength  every  day.  I  should  not  be  sur- 
prised if  we  were  to  be  two  thousand  strong  by 
the  25th  of  December,  1835;  and,  in  addition 
to  this,  I  have  the  advantage  of  any  other  leader 
of  banditti  that  has  ever  preceded  me,  for  at 
least  one-half  of  my  Grand  Council  are  men  of 
high  standing,  and  many  of  them  in  honorable 
and  lucrative  offices." 

The  number  of  men,  more  or  less  prominent, 
in  the  different  states  included:  sixty-one  from 
Tennessee,  forty-seven  from  Mississippi,  forty- 
six  from  Arkansas,  twenty-five  from  Kentucky, 
twenty-seven  from  Missouri,  twenty-eight  from 
Alabama,  thirty-three  from  Georgia,  thirty-five 
from  South  Carolina,  thirty-two  from  North 
Carolina,  twenty-one  from  Virginia,  twenty- 
seven  from  Maryland,  sixteen  from  Florida, 


The  Outlaw  71 

thirty-two  from  Louisiana.  The  transient  mem- 
bers who  made  a  habit  of  traveling  from  place 
to  place  numbered  twenty-two ;  Murrell  said  that 
there  was  a  total  list  of  two  thousand  men  in 
his  band,  including  all  classes. 

To  the  foregoing  sketch  of  Murrell's  life 
Mr.  Alexander  Hynds,  historian  of  Tennessee, 
adds  some  facts  and  comments  which  will  en- 
able the  reader  more  fully  to  make  his  own 
estimate  as  to  this  singular  man: 

"The  central  meeting  place  of  Murrell's 
band  was  near  an  enormous  cottonwood  tree 
in  Mississippi  county,  Arkansas.  It  was  stand- 
ing in  1890,  and  is  perhaps  still  standing  in  the 
wilderness  shortly  above  Memphis.  His  widely 
scattered  bands  had  a  system  of  signs  and  pass- 
words. Murrell  himself  was  married  to  the 
sister  of  one  of  his  gang.  He  bought  a  good 
farm  near  Denmark,  Madison  county,  Tennes- 
see, where  he  lived  as  a  plain  farmer,  while  he 
conducted  the  most  fearful  schemes  of  rapine 
and  murder  from  New  Orleans  up  to  Memphis, 
St.  Louis  and  Cincinnati. 

"Nature  had  done  much  for  Murrell.  He 
had  a  quick  mind,  a  fine  natural  address  and 
great  adaptability;  and  he  was  as  much  at  ease 
among  the  refined  and  cultured  as  with  his  own 


72  The  Story  of 

gang.  He  made  a  special  study  of  criminal  law, 
and  knew  something  of  medicine.  He  often 
palmed  himself  off  as  a  preacher,  and  preached 
in  large  camp-meetings — and  some  were  con- 
verted under  his  ministry!  He  often  used  his 
clerical  garb  in  passing  counterfeit  money. 
With  a  clear  head,  cool,  fine  judgment,  and  a 
nature  utterly  without  fear,  moral  or  physical, 
his  power  over  his  men  never  waned.  To  them 
he  was  just,  fair  and  amiable.  He  was  a  kind 
husband  and  brother,  and  a  faithful  friend. 
He  took  great  pride  in  his  position  and  in  the 
operations  of  his  gang.  This  conceit  was  the 
only  weak  spot  in  his  nature,  and  led  to  his 
downfall. 

"Stewart,  who  purports  to  be  MurrelPs 
biographer,  made  Murrell's  acquaintance,  pre- 
tended to  join  his  gang,  and  playing  on  his 
vanity,  attended  a  meeting  of  the  gang  at  the 
rendezvous  at  the  Big  Cottonwood,  and  saw 
the  meeting  of  the  Grand  Council.  He  had 
Murrell  arrested,  and  he  was  tried,  convicted 
and  sent  to  the  Tennessee  penitentiary  in  1834 
for  ten  years.  There  he  worked  in  the  black- 
smith shops,  but  by  the  time  he  got  out,  was 
broken  down  in  mind  and  body,  emerging  an 
imbecile  and  an  invalid,  to  live  less  than  a  year. 


The  Outlaw  73 

"Stewart's  account  holds  inconsistencies  and 
inaccuracies,  such  as  that  many  men  high  in 
social  and  official  life  belonged  to  Murrell's 
gang,  which  his  published  lists  do  not  show. 
He  had  perhaps  440  to  450  men,  scattered  from 
New  Orleans  to  Cincinnati,  but  his  downfall 
spread  fear  and  distrust  among  them. 

"At  Vicksburg,  on  July  4,  1835,  a  drunken 
member  of  the  gang  threatened  to  attack  the 
authorities,  and  was  tarred  and  feathered. 
Others  of  the  gang,  or  at  least  several  well- 
known  gamblers,  collected  and  defied  the  citi- 
zens, and  killed  the  good  and  brave  Dr.  Bodley. 
Five  men  were  hung,  Hullams,  Dutch  Bill, 
North,  Smith  and  McCall.  The  news  swept 
like  wildfire  through  the  Mississippi  Valley  and 
gave  heart  to  the  lovers  of  law  and  order.  At 
one  or  two  other  places  some  were  shot,  some 
were  hanged,  and  now  and  then  one  or  two  were 
sent  to  prison,  and  thus  an  end  was  put  to  or- 
ganized crime  in  the  Southwest  forever;  and 
this  closed  out  the  reign  of  the  river  cut- 
throats, pirates  and  gamblers  as  well/' 

Thus,  as  in  the  case  of  Sturdevant,  lynch  law 
put  an  effectual  end  to  outlawry  that  the  law  it- 
self could  not  control. 


74  The  Story  of 


Chapter  V 

The  Vigilantes  of  California — The  Greatest 
Vigilante  Movement  of  the  World — History  of 
the  California  "Stranglers"  and  Their  Methods. 

THE  world  will  never  see  another  Cali- 
fornia. Great  gold  stampedes  there 
may  be,  but  under  conditions  far  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  1849.  Transportation  has 
been  so  developed,  travel  has  become  so  swift 
and  easy,  that  no  section  can  now  long  remain 
segregated  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  There 
is  no  corner  of  the  earth  which  may  not  now  be 
reached  with  a  celerity  impossible  in  the  days 
of  the  great  rush  to  the  Pacific  Coast.  The 
whole  structure  of  civilization,  itself  based  upon 
transportation,  goes  swiftly  forward  with  that 
transportation,  and  the  tent  of  the  miner  or 
adventurer  finds  immediately  erected  by  its  side 
the  temple  of  the  law. 

It  was  not  thus  in  those  early  days  of  our 


The   Outlaw  75 

Western  history.  The  law  was  left  far  behind 
by  reason  of  the  exigencies  of  geography  and  of 
wilderness  travel.  Thousands  of  honest  men 
pressed  on  across  the  plains  and  mountains  in- 
flamed, it  is  true,  by  the  madness  of  the  lust 
for  gold,  but  carrying  at  the  outset  no  wish  to 
escape  from  the  watch-care  of  the  law.  With 
them  went  equal  numbers  of  those  eager  to  es- 
cape all  restraints  of  society  and  law,  men  intend- 
ing never  to  aid  in  the  uprearing  of  the  social 
system  in  new  wild  lands.  Both  these  elements, 
the  law-loving  and  the  law-hating,  as  they  ad- 
vanced pari-passu  farther  and  farther  from  the 
staid  world  which  they  had  known,  noticed  the 
development  of  a  strange  phenomenon:  that 
law,  which  they  had  left  behind  them,  waned  in 
importance  with  each  passing  day.  The  stand- 
ards of  the  old  home  changed,  even  as  customs 
changed.  A  week's  journey  from  the  settle- 
ments showed  the  argonaut  a  new  world.  A 
month  hedged  it  about  to  itself,  alone,  apart, 
with  ideas  and  values  of  its  own  and  inde- 
pendent of  all  others.  A  year  sufficed  to  leave 
that  world  as  distinct  as  though  it  occupied  a 
planet  all  its  own.  For  that  world  the  divine 
fire  of  the  law  must  be  re-discovered,  evolved, 
nay,  evoked  fresh  from  chaos  even  as  the  sav- 


76  The  Story  of 

age  calls  forth  fire  from  the  dry  and  sapless 
twigs  of  the  wilderness. 

In  the  gold  country  all  ideas  and  principles 
were  based  upon  new  conditions.  Precedents 
did  not  exist.  Man  had  gone  savage  again, 
and  it  was  the  beginning.  Yet  this  savage, 
willing  to  live  as  a  savage  in  a  land  which  was 
one  vast  encampment,  was  the  Anglo-Saxon 
savage,  and  therefore  carried  with  him  that 
chief  trait  of  the  American  character,  the  prin- 
ciple that  what  a  man  earns — not  what  he  steals, 
but  what  he  earns — is  his  and  his  alone.  This 
principle  sowed  in  ground  forbidding  and  un- 
promising was  the  seed  of  the  law  out  of  which 
has  sprung  the  growth  of  a  mighty  civilization 
fit  to  be  called  an  empire  of  its  own.  The 
growth  and  development  of  law  under  such  con- 
ditions offered  phenomena  not  recorded  in  the 
history  of  any  other  land  or  time. 

In  the  first  place,  and  even  while  in  transit, 
men  organized  for  the  purpose  of  self-protec- 
tion, and  in  this  necessary  act  law-abiding  and 
criminal  elements  united.  After  arriving  at 
the  scenes  of  the  gold  fields,  such  organization 
was  forgotten ;  even  the  parties  that  had  banded 
together  in  the  Eastern  states  as  partners  rarely 
kept  together  for  a  month  after  reaching  the 


The  Outlaw  77 

region  where  luck,  hazard  and  opportunity,  in- 
extricably blended,  appealed  to  each  man  to  act 
for  himself  and  with  small  reference  to  others. 
The  first  organizations  of  the  mining  camps 
were  those  of  the  criminal  element.  They 
were  presently  met  by  the  organization  of  the 
law  and  order  men.  Hard  upon  the  miners' 
law  came  the  regularly  organized  legal  ma- 
chinery of  the  older  states,  modified  by  local 
conditions,  and  irretrievably  blended  with  a  poli- 
tics more  corrupt  than  any  known  before  or 
since.  Men  were  busy  in  picking  up  raw  gold 
from  the  earth,  and  they  paid  small  attention 
to  courts  and  government.  The  law  became  an 
unbridled  instrument  of  evil.  Judges  of  the 
courts  openly  confiscated  the  property  of  their 
enemies,  or  sentenced  them  with  no  reference  to 
the  principles  of  justice,  with  as  great  disregard 
for  life  and  liberty  as  was  ever  known  in  the 
Revolutionary  days  of  France.  Against  this 
manner  of  government  presently  arose  the  or- 
ganizations of  the  law-abiding,  the  justice-lov- 
ing, and  these  took  the  law  into  their  own  stern 
hands.  The  executive  officers  of  the  law,  the 
sheriffs  and  constables,  were  in  league  to  kill 
and  confiscate ;  and  against  these  the  new  agency 
of  the  actual  law  made  war,  constituting  them- 


78  The  Story  of 

selves  into  an  arm  of  essential  government,  and 
openly  called  themselves  Vigilantes.  In  turn 
criminals  used  the  cloak  of  the  Vigilantes  to 
cover  their  own  deeds  of  lawlessness  and  vio- 
lence. The  Vigilantes  purged  themselves  of  the 
false  members,  and  carried  their  own  title  of 
opprobrium,  the  "stranglers,"  with  unconcern 
or  pride.  They  grew  in  numbers,  the  love  of 
justice  their  lodestone,  until  at  one  time  they 
numbered  more  than  five  thousand  in  the  city 
of  San  Francisco  alone,  and  held  that  com- 
munity in  a  grip  of  lawlessness,  or  law,  as  you 
shall  choose  to  term  it.  They  set  at  defiance  the 
chief  executive  of  the  state,  erected  an  armed 
castle  of  their  own,  seized  upon  the  arms  of  the 
militia,  defied  the  government  of  the  United 
States  and  even  the  United  States  army!  They 
were,  as  you  shall  choose  to  call  them,  criminals, 
or  great  and  noble  men.  Seek  as  you  may  to- 
day, you  will  never  know  the  full  roster  of  their 
names,  although  they  made  no  concealment  of 
their  identity;  and  no  one,  to  this  day,  has  ever 
been  able  to  determine  who  took  the  first  step 
in  their  organization.  They  began  their  labors 
in  California  at  a  time  when  there  had  been 
more  than  two  thousand  murders — five  hundred 
in  one  year — and  not  five  legal  executions. 


The  Outlaw  79 

Their  task  included  the  erection  of  a  fit  struc- 
ture of  the  law,  and,  incidentally,  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  corrupt  and  unworthy  structure  claim- 
ing the  title  of  the  law.  In  this  strange,  swift 
panorama  there  is  all  the  story  of  the  social 
system,  all  the  picture  of  the  building  of  that 
temple  of  the  law  which,  as  Americans,  we  now 
revere,  or,  at  times,  still  despise  and  desecrate. 
At  first  the  average  gold  seeker  concerned 
himself  little  with  law,  because  he  intended  to 
make  his  fortune  quickly  and  then  hasten  back 
East  to  his  former  home;  yet,  as  early  as  the 
winter  of  1849,  there  was  elected  a  legislature 
which  met  at  San  Jose,  a  Senate  of  sixteen  mem- 
bers and  an  Assembly  of  thirty-six.  In  this 
election  the  new  American  vote  was  in  evidence. 
The  miners  had  already  tired  of  the  semi-mili- 
tary phase  of  their  government,  and  had  met 
and  adopted  a  state  constitution.  The  legisla- 
ture enacted  one  hundred  and  forty  new  laws 
in  two  months,  and  abolished  all  former  laws; 
and  then,  satisfied  with  its  labors,  it  left  the 
enforcement  of  the  laws,  in  the  good  old  Ameri- 
can fashion,  to  whomsoever  might  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  matter.*  This  is  our  custom  even 
to-day.  Our  great  cities  of  the  East  are  prac- 

*  Tuthill :  « «  History  of  California. ' ' 


8o  The  Story  of 

tically  all  governed,  so  far  as  they  are  governed 
at  all,  by  civic  leagues,  civic  federations,  citi- 
zens' leagues,  business  men's  associations — all 
protests  at  non-enforcement  of  the  law.  This 
protest  in  '49  and  on  the  Pacific  coast  took  a 
sterner  form. 

At  one  time  the  city  of  San  Francisco  had 
three  separate  and  distinct  city  councils,  each 
claiming  to  be  the  only  legal  one.  In  spite  of 
the  new  state  organization,  the  law  was  much  a 
matter  of  go  as  you  please.  Under  such  condi- 
tions it  was  no  wonder  that  outlawry  began  to 
show  its  head  in  bold  and  well-organized  forms. 
A  party  of  ruffians,  who  called  themselves  the 
"Hounds,"  banded  together  to  run  all  foreign- 
ers out  of  the  rich  camps,  and  to  take  their  dig- 
gings over  for  themselves.  A  number  of  Chile- 
ans were  beaten  or  shot,  and  their  property  was 
confiscated  or  destroyed.  This  was  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  saving  grace  of  American 
justice,  which  devoted  to  a  man  that  which 
he  had  earned.  A  counter  organization  was 
promptly  formed,  and  the  "Hounds"  found 
themselves  confronted  with  two  hundred  "spe- 
cial constables,"  each  with  a  good  rifle.  A 
mass  meeting  sat  as  a  court,  and  twenty  of  the 
"Hounds"  were  tried,  ten  of  them  receiving 


The  Outlaw  81 

sentences  that  never  were  enforced,  but  which 
had  the  desired  effect.  So  now,  while  far  to 
the  eastward  the  Congress  was  hotly  arguing 
the  question  of  the  admission  of  California  as 
a  state,  she  was  beginning  to  show  an  interest 
in  law  and  justice  when  aroused  thereto. 

It  was  difficult  material  out  of  which  to  build 
a  civilized  community.  The  hardest  popula- 
tion of  the  entire  world  was  there;  men  savage 
or  civilized  by  tradition,  heathen  or  Christian 
once  at  least,  but  now  all  Californian.  Wealth 
was  the  one  common  thing.  The  average  daily 
return  in  the  work  of  mining  ranged  from 
twenty  to  thirty  dollars,  and  no  man  might  tell 
when  his  fortune  might  be  made  by  a  blow  of 
a  pick.  Some  nuggets  of  gold  weighing  twenty- 
five  pounds  were  discovered.  In  certain  dig- 
gings men  picked  pure  gold  from  the  rock 
crevices  with  a  spoon  or  a  knife  point.  As  to 
values,  they  were  guessed  at,  the  only  currency 
being  gold  dust  or  nuggets.  Prodigality  was 
universal.  All  the  gamblers  of  the  world  met 
in  vulture  concourse.  There  was  little  in  the 
way  of  home;  of  women  almost  none.  Life 
was  as  cheap  as  gold  dust.  Let  those  who 
liked  bother  about  statehood  and  government 
and  politics ;  the  average  man  was  too  busy  dig- 


82  The  Story  of 

ging  and  spending  gold  to  trouble  over  such 
matters.  The  most  shameless  men  were  those 
found  in  public  office.  Wealth  and  commerce 
waxed  great,  but  law  and  civilization  lan- 
guished. The  times  were  ripening  for  the 
growth  of  some  system  of  law  which  would 
offer  proper  protection  to  life  and  property. 
The  measure  of  this  need  may  be  seen  from  the 
figures  of  the  production  of  gold.  From  1848 
to  1856  California  produced  between  five  hun- 
dred and  six  hundred  million  dollars  in  virgin 
gold.  What  wonder  the  courts  were  weak; 
and  what  wonder  the  Vigilantes  became  strong ! 
There  were  in  California  three  distinct 
Vigilante  movements,  those  of  1849,  1&5i> 
and  1856,  the  earliest  applying  rather  to  the 
outlying  mining  camps  than  to  the  city  of  San 
Francisco.  In  1851,  seeing  that  the  courts 
made  no  attempt  to  punish  criminals,  a  com- 
mittee was  formed  which  did  much  toward 
enforcing  respect  for  the  principles  o?  justice, 
if  not  of  law.  On  June  n  they  hanged  John 
Jenkins  for  robbing  a  store.  A  month  later 
they  hanged  James  Stuart  for  murdering  a 
sheriff.  In  August  of  the  same  summer  they 
took  out  of  jail  and  hanged  Whittaker  and 
McKenzie,  Australian  ex-convicts,  whom  they 


The  Outlaw  83 

had  tried  and  sentenced,  but  who  had  been 
rescued  by  the  officers  of  the  law.  Two  weeks 
later  this  committee  disbanded.  They  paid  no 
attention  to  the  many  killings  that  were  going 
on  over  land  titles  and  the  like,  but  confined 
themselves  to  punishing  men  who  had  com- 
mitted intolerable  crimes.  Theft  was  as  seri- 
ous as  murder,  perhaps  more  so,  in  the  creed 
of  the  time  and  place.  The  list  of  murders 
reached  appalling  dimensions.  The  times  were 
sadly  out  of  joint.  The  legislature  was  corrupt, 
graft  was  rampant — though  then  unknown  by 
that  name — and  the  entire  social  body  was  rest- 
less, discontented,  and  uneasy.  Politics  had 
become  a  fine  art.  The  judiciary,  lazy  and  cor- 
rupt, was  held  in  contempt.  The  dockets  of 
the  courts  were  full,  and  little  was  done  to  clear 
them  effectively.  Criminals  did  as  they  liked 
and  went  unwhipped  of  justice.  It  was  truly 
a  day  of  violence  and  license. 

Once  more  the  sober  and  law-loving  men  of 
California  sent  abroad  word,  and  again  the 
Vigilantes  assembled.  In  1853  tnev  hanged 
two  Mexicans  for  horse  stealing,  and  also  a 
bartender  who  had  shot  a  citizen  near  Shasta. 
At  Jackson  they  hanged  another  Mexican  for 
horse  stealing,  and  at  Volcano,  in  1854,  they 


84  The  Story  of 

hanged  a  man  named  Macy  for  stabbing  an 
old  and  helpless  man.  In  this  instance  ven- 
geance was  very  swift,  for  the  murderer  was 
executed  within  half  an  hour  after  his  deed. 
The  haste  caused  certain  criticism  when,  in  the 
same  month  one  Johnson  was  hanged  for  stab- 
bing a  man  named  Montgomery,  at  Iowa  Hill, 
who  later  recovered.  At  Los  Angeles  three 
men  were  sentenced  to  death  by  the  local  court, 
but  the  Supreme  Court  issued  a  stay  for  two 
of  them,  Brown  and  Lee.  The  people  as- 
serted that  all  must  die  together,  and  the  mayor 
of  the  city  was  of  the  same  mind.  The  third 
man,  Alvitre,  was  hanged  legally  on  January 
12,  1855.  On  that  day  the  mayor  resigned 
his  office  to  join  the  Vigilantes.  Brown  was 
taken  out  of  jail  and  hanged  in  spite  of  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  people 
were  out-running  the  law.  That  same  month 
they  hanged  another  murderer  for  killing  the 
treasurer  of  Tuolumne  county.  In  the  follow- 
ing month  they  hanged  three  more  cattle  thieves 
in  Contra  Costa  county,  and  followed  this  by 
hanging  a  horse  thief  in  Oakland.  A  larger 
affair  threatened  in  the  following  summer, 
when  thirty-six  Mexicans  were  arrested  for 
killing  a  party  of  Americans.  For  a  time  it 


The  Outlaw  85 

was  proposed  to  hang  all  thirty-six,  but  sober 
counsel  prevailed  and  only  three  were  hanged; 
this  after  formal  jury  trial.  Unknown  bandits 
waylaid  and  killed  Isaac  B.  Wall  and  T.  S. 
Williamson  of  Monterey,  and,  that  same 
month  U.  S.  Marshal  William  H.  Richard- 
son was  shot  by  Charles  Cora  in  the  streets 
of  San  Francisco.  The  people  grumbled. 
There  was  no  certainty  that  justice  would  ever 
reach  these  offenders.  The  reputation  of  the 
state  was  ruined,  not  by  the  acts  of  the  Vigi- 
lantes, but  by  those  of  unscrupulous  and  un- 
principled men  in  office  and  upon  the  bench. 
The  government  was  run  by  gamblers,  ruffians, 
and  thugs.  The  good  men  of  the  state  began 
to  prepare  for  a  general  movement  of  purifi- 
cation and  the  installation  of  an  actual  law. 
The  great  Vigilante  movement  of  1856  was 
the  result. 

The  immediate  cause  of  this  last  organiza- 
tion was  the  murder  of  James  King,  editor  of 
the  Bulletin,  by  James  P.  Casey.  Casey, 
after  shooting  King,  was  hurried  off  to  jail  by 
his  own  friends,  and  there  was  protected  by  a 
display  of  military  force.  King  lingered  for 
six  days  after  he  was  shot,  and  the  state  of 
public  opinion  was  ominous.  Cora,  who  had 


86  The  Story  of 

killed  Marshal  Richardson,  had  never  been 
punished,  and  there  seemed  no  likelihood  that 
Casey  would  be.  The  local  press  was  divided. 
The  religious  papers,  the  Pacific  and  the 
Christian  Advocate,  both  openly  declared  that 
Casey  ought  to  be  hanged.  The  clergy 
took  up  the  matter  sternly,  and  one  minister 
of  the  Gospel,  Rev.  J.  A.  Benton,  of  Sacra- 
mento, gave  utterance  to  this  remarkable  but 
well-grounded  statement :  "A  people  can  be  jus- 
tified  in  recalling  delegated  power  and  resum- 
ing its  exercise"  Before  we  hasten  to  criticize 
sweepingly  under  the  term  "mob  law"  such 
work  as  this  of  the  Vigilantes,  it  will  be  well 
for  us  to  weigh  that  utterance,  and  to  apply 
it  to  conditions  of  our  own  times;  to-day  is 
well-nigh  as  dangerous  to  American  liberties  as 
were  the  wilder  days  of  California. 

Now,  summoned  by  some  unknown  com- 
mand, armed  men  appeared  in  the  streets  of 
San  Francisco,  twenty-four  companies  in  all, 
with  perhaps  fifty  men  in  each  company.  The 
Vigilantes  had  organized  again.  They  brought 
a  cannon  and  placed  it  against  the  jail  gate, 
and  demanded  that  Casey  be  surrendered  to 
them.  There  was  no  help  for  it,  and  Casey 
went  away  handcuffed,  to  face  a  court  where 


The   Outlaw  87 

political  influence  would  mean  nothing.  An 
hour  later  the  murderer  Cora  was  taken  from 
his  cell,  and  was  hastened  away  to  join  Casey  in 
the  headquarters  building  of  the  Vigilantes.  A 
company  of  armed  and  silent  men  marched  on 
each  side  of  the  carriage  containing  the  pris- 
oner. The  two  men  were  tried  in  formal  ses- 
sion of  the  Committee,  each  having  counsel,  and 
all  evidence  being  carefully  weighed. 

King  died  on  May  20,  1856,  and  on  May 
22d  was  buried  with  popular  honors,  a  long 
procession  of  citizens  following  the  body  to 
the  cemetery.  A  popular  subscription  was 
started,  and  in  a  brief  time  over  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars  was  raised  for  the  benefit  of  his 
widow  and  children.  When  the  long  proces- 
sion filed  back  into  the  city,  it  was  to  witness, 
swinging  from  a  beam  projecting  from  a  win- 
dow of  Committee  headquarters,  the  bodies  of 
Casey  and  Cora. 

The  Committee  now  arrested  two  more  men, 
not  for  a  capital  crime,  but  for  one  which  lay 
back  of  a  long  series  of  capital  crimes — the 
stuffing  of  ballot-boxes  and  other  election 
frauds.  These  men  were  Billy  Mulligan  and 
the  prize-fighter  known  as  Yankee  Sullivan. 
Although  advised  that  he  would  have  a  fair 


The  Story  of 


trial  and  that  the  death  penalty  would  not  be 
passed  upon  him,  Yankee  Sullivan  committed 
suicide  in  his  cell.  The  entire  party  of  lawyers 
and  judges  were  arrayed  against  the  Commit- 
tee, naturally  enough.  Judge  Terry,  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  issued  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
for  Mulligan.  The  Committee  ignored  the 
sheriff  who  was  sent  to  serve  the  writ.  They 
cleared  the  streets  in  front  of  headquarters,  es- 
tablished six  cannon  in  front  of  their  rooms, 
put  loaded  swivels  on  top  of  the  roof  and 
mounted  a  guard  of  a  hundred  riflemen.  They 
brought  bedding  and  provisions  to  their  quar- 
ters, mounted  a  huge  triangle  on  the  roof  for 
a  signal  to  their  men  all  over  the  city,  arranged 
the  interior  of  their  rooms  in  the  form  of  a 
court  and,  in  short,  set  themselves  up  as  the 
law,  openly  defying  their  own  Supreme  Court 
of  the  state.  So  far  from  being  afraid  of  the 
vengeance  of  the  law,  they  arrested  two  more 
men  for  election  frauds,  Chas.  P.  Duane  and 
"Woolly"  Kearney.  All  their  prisoners  were 
guarded  in  cells  within  the  headquarters  build- 
ing. 

The  opposition  to  the  Committee  now  or- 
ganized in  turn  under  the  name  of  the  "Law 
and  Order  Men,"  and  held  a  public  meeting. 


The  Outlaw  89 

This  was  numerously  attended  by  members  of 
the  Vigilante  Committee,  whose  books  were  now 
open  for  enrollment.  Not  even  the  criticism 
of  their  own  friends  stayed  these  men  in  their 
resolution.  They  went  even  further.  Gov- 
ernor Johnson  issued  a  proclamation  to  them  to 
disband  and  disperse.  They  paid  no  more  at- 
tention to  this  than  they  had  to  Judge  Terry's 
writ  of  habeas  corpus.  The  governor  threat- 
ened them  with  the  militia,  but  it  was  not 
enough  to  frighten  them.  General  Sherman 
resigned  his  command  in  the  state  militia,  and 
counseled  moderation  at  so  dangerous  a  time. 
Many  of  the  militia  turned  in  their  rifles  to  the 
Committee,  which  got  other  arms  from  vessels 
in  the  harbor,  and  from  carelessly  guarded  ar- 
mories. Halting  at  no  responsibility,  a  band 
of  the  Committee  even  boarded  a  schooner 
which  was  carrying  down  a  cargo  of  rifles  from 
the  governor  to  General  Howard  at  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  seized  the  entire  lot.  Shortly  after 
this  they  confiscated  a  second  shipment  which 
the  governor  was  sending  down  from  Sacra- 
mento in  the  same  way;  thus  seizing  property 
of  the  federal  government.  If  there  was  such 
a  crime  as  high  treason,  they  committed  it,  and 
did  so  openly  and  without  hesitation.  Gov- 


90  The  Story  of 

ernor  Johnson  contented  himself  with  drawing 
up  a  statement  of  the  situation,  which  was  sent 
down  to  President  Pierce  at  Washington,  with 
the  request  that  he  instruct  naval  officers  on 
the  Pacific  station  to  supply  arms  to  the  State 
of  California,  which  had  been  despoiled  by  cer- 
tain of  its  citizens.  President  Pierce  turned 
over  the  matter  to  his  attorney-general,  Caleb 
Cushing,  who  rendered  an  opinion  saying  that 
Governor  Johnson  had  not  yet  exhausted  the 
state  remedies,  and  that  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment could  not  interfere. 

Little  remained  for  the  Committee  to  do  to 
show  its  resolution  to  act  as  the  State  pro  tern- 
pore.  That  little  it  now  proceeded  to  do  by 
practically  suspending  the  Supreme  Court  of 
California.  In  making  an  arrest  of  a  witness 
wanted  by  the  Committee,  Sterling  A.  Hop- 
kins, one  of  the  policemen  retained  for  work 
by  the  Committee,  was  stabbed  in  the  throat 
by  Judge  Terry,  of  the  Supreme  Bench,  who 
was  very  bitter  against  all  members  of  the 
Committee.  It  was  supposed  that  the  wound 
would  prove  fatal,  and  at  once  the  Committee 
sounded  the  call  for  general  assembly.  The 
city  went  into  two  hostile  camps,  Terry  and  his 
friend,  Dr.  Ashe,  taking  refuge  in  the  armory 


The  Outlaw  91 

where  the  "Law  and  Order"  faction  kept  their 
arms.  The  members  of  the  Vigilante  Commit- 
tee besieged  this  place,  and  presently  took 
charge  of  Terry  and  Ashe,  as  prisoners.  Then 
the  scouts  of  the  Committee  went  out  after  the 
arms  of  all  the  armories  belonging  to  the  gov- 
ernor and  the  "Law  and  Order"  men  who  sup- 
ported him,  the  lawyers  and  politicians  who  felt 
that  their  functions  were  being  usurped.  Two 
thousand  rifles  were  taken,  and  the  opposing 
party  was  left  without  arms.  The  entire  state, 
so  to  speak,  was  now  in  the  hands  of  the  "Com- 
mittee of  Vigilance,"  a  body  of  men,  quiet,  law- 
loving,  law-enforcing,  but  of  course  technically 
traitors  and  criminals.  The  parallel  of  this  sit- 
uation has  never  existed  elsewhere  in  American 
history. 

Had  Hopkins  died  the  probability  is  that 
Judge  Terry  would  have  been  hanged  by  the 
Committee,  but  fortunately  he  did  not  die. 
Terry  lay  a  prisoner  in  the  cell  assigned  him 
at  the  Committee's  rooms  for  seven  weeks,  by 
which  time  Hopkins  had  recovered  from  the 
wound  given  him  by  Terry.  The  case  became 
one  of  national  interest,  and  tirades  against 
"the  Stranglers"  were  not  lacking;  but  the 
Committee  went  on  enrolling  men.  And  it  did 


92  The  Story  of 

not  open  its  doors  for  its  prisoners,  although 
appeal  was  made  to  Congress  in  Terry's  behalf 
— an  appeal  which  was  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Judiciary,  and  so  buried. 

Terry  was  finally  released,  much  to  the  re- 
gret of  many  of  the  Committee,  who  thought 
he  should  have  been  punished.  The  executive 
committee  called  together  the  board  of  dele- 
gates, and  issued  a  statement  showing  that 
death  and  banishment  were  the  only  penalties 
optional  with  them.  Death  they  could  not  in- 
flict, because  Hopkins  had  recovered;  and  ban- 
ishment they  thought  impractical  at  that  time, 
as  it  might  prolong  discussion  indefinitely,  and 
enforce  a  longer  term  in  service  than  the  Com- 
mittee cared  for.  It  was  the  earnest  wish  of 
all  to  disband  at  the  first  moment  that  they 
considered  their  state  and  city  fit  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  and  the  sacredness  of  the  ballot- 
box  again  insured.  To  assure  this  latter  fact, 
they  had  arrayed  themselves  against  the  fed- 
eral government,  as  certainly  they  had  against 
the  state  government. 

The  Committee  now  hanged  two  more  mur- 
derers— Hetherington  and  Brace — the  former 
a  gambler  from  St.  Louis,  the  latter  a  youth 
of  New  York  parentage,  twenty-one  years  of 


The  Outlaw  93 

age,  but  hardened  enough  to  curse  volubly 
upon  the  scaffold.  By  the  middle  of  August, 
1856,  they  had  no  more  prisoners  in  charge, 
and  were  ready  to  turn  the  city  over  to  its  own 
system  of  government.  Their  report,  pub- 
lished in  the  following  fall,  showed  they  had 
hanged  four  men  and  banished  many  others, 
besides  frightening  out  of  the  country  a  large 
criminal  population  that  did  not  tarry  for  ar- 
rest and  trial. 

If  opinion  was  divided  to  some  extent  in  San 
Francisco,  where  those  stirring  deeds  occurred, 
the  sentiment  of  the  outlying  communities  of 
California  was  almost  a  unit  in  favor  of  the 
Vigilantes,  and  their  action  received  the  sincere 
flattery  of  imitation,  as  half  a  score  of  criminals 
learned  to  their  sorrow  on  impromptu  scaffolds. 
There  was  no  large  general  organization  in 
any  other  community,  however.  After  a  time 
some  of  the  banished  men  came  back,  and  many 
damage  suits  were  argued  later  in  the  courts; 
but  small  satisfaction  came  to  those  claimants, 
and  few  men  who  knew  of  the  deeds  of  the 
"Committee  of  Vigilance"  ever  cared  to  discuss 
them.  Indeed  it  was  practically  certain  that 
any  man  who  ever  served  on  a  Western  vigi- 
lance committee  finished  his  life  with  sealed 


94  The  Story  of 

lips.  Had  he  ventured  to  talk  of  what  he  knew 
he  would  have  met  contempt  or  something 
harsher. 

A  political  capital  was  made  out  of  the  sit- 
uation in  San  Francisco.  The  "Committee  of 
Vigilance"  felt  that  it  had  now  concluded  its 
work  and  was  ready  to  go  back  to  civil  life. 
On  August  1 8,  1856,  the  Committee  marched 
openly  in  review  through  the  streets  of  the  city, 
five  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  men 
in  line,  with  three  companies  of  artillery,  eigh- 
teen cannon,  a  company  of  dragoons,  and  a 
medical  staff  of  forty  odd  physicians.  There 
were  in  this  body  one  hundred  and  fifty  men 
who  had  served  in  the  old  Committee  in  1851. 
After  the  parade  the  men  halted,  the  assem- 
blage broke  up  into  companies,  the  companies 
into  groups;  and  thus,  quietly,  with  no  vaunt- 
ing of  themselves  and  no  concealment  of  their 
acts,  there  passed  away  one  of  the  most  singu- 
lar and  significant  organizations  of  American 
citizens  ever  known.  They  did  this  with  the 
quiet  assertion  that  if  their  services  were  again 
needed,  they  would  again  assemble;  and  they 
printed  a  statement  covering  their  actions  in 
detail,  showing  to  any  fair-minded  man  that 
what  they  had  done  was  indeed  for  the  good 


The  Outlaw  95 

of  the  whole  community,  which  had  been 
wronged  by  those  whom  it  had  elected  to 
power,  those  who  had  set  themselves  up  as 
masters  where  they  had  been  chosen  as  servants. 
The  "Committee  of  Vigilance"  of  San  Fran- 
cisco was  made  up  of  men  from  all  walks  of 
life  and  all  political  parties.  It  had  any 
amount  of  money  at  its  command  that  it  re- 
quired, for  its  members  were  of  the  best  and 
most  influential  citizens.  It  maintained,  dur- 
ing its  existence,  quarters  unique  in  their  way, 
serving  as  arms-room,  trial  court,  fortress,  and 
prison.  It  was  not  a  mob,  but  a  grave  and 
orderly  band  of  men,  and  its  deliberations  were 
formal  and  exact,  its  labors  being  divided 
among  proper  sub-committees  and  boards.  The 
quarters  were  kept  open  day  and  night,  always 
ready  for  swift  action,  if  necessary.  It  had  an 
executive  committee,  which  upon  occasion  con- 
ferred with  a  board  of  delegates  composed  of 
three  men  from  each  subdivision  of  the  general 
body.  The  executive  committee  consisted  of 
thirty-three  members,  and  its  decision  was  final; 
but  it  could  not  enforce  a  death  penalty  except 
on  a  two-thirds  vote  of  those  present.  It  had 
a  prosecuting  attorney,  and  it  tried  no  prisoner 
without  assigning  to  him  competent  counsel. 


96  The  Story  of 

It  had  also  a  police  force,  with  a  chief  of  po- 
lice and  a  sheriff  with  several  deputies.  In 
short,  it  took  over  the  government,  and  was 
indeed  the  government,  municipal  and  state  in 
one.  Recent  as  was  its  life,  its  deeds  to-day 
are  well-nigh  forgotten.  Though  opinion  may 
be  still  divided  in  certain  quarters,  California 
need  not  be  ashamed  of  this  "Committee  of  Vig- 
ilance." She  should  be  proud  of  it,  for  it  was 
largely  through  its  unthanked  and  dangerous 
safeguarding  of  the  public  interests  that  Cali- 
fornia gained  her  social  system  of  to-day. 

In  all  the  history  of  American  desperadoism 
and  of  the  movements  which  have  checked  it, 
there  is  no  page  more  worth  study  than  this 
from  the  story  of  the  great  Golden  State.  The 
moral  is  a  sane,  clean,  and  strong  one.  The 
creed  of  the  "Committee  of  Vigilance"  is  one 
which  we  might  well  learn  to-day;  and  its  prac- 
tice would  leave  us  with  more  dignity  of  char- 
acter than  we  can  claim,  so  long  as  we  content 
ourselves  merely  with  outcry  and  criticism,  with 
sweeping  accusation  of  our  unfaithful  public 
servants,  and  without  seeing  that  they  are  pun- 
ished. There  is  nothing  but  manhood  and  free- 
dom and  justice  in  the  covenant  of  the  Com- 
mittee. That  covenant  all  American  citizens 


The  Outlaw  97 

should  be  ready  to  sign  and  live  up  to:  "We 
do  bind  ourselves  each  unto  the  other  by  a 
solemn  oath  to  do  and  perform  every  just  and 
lawful  act  for  the  maintenance  of  law  and 
order,  and  to  sustain  the  laws  when  faithfully 
and  properly  administered.  But  we  are  deter- 
mined that  no  thief,  burglar,  incendiary,  assas- 
sin, ballot-box  stuffer  or  other  disturber  of  the 
peace,  shall  escape  punishment,  either  by  quib- 
bles of  the  law,  the  carelessness  of  the  police 
or  a  laxity  of  those  who  pretend  to  administer 
justice." 

What  a  man  earns,  that  is  his — such  was  the 
lesson  of  California.  Self-government  is  our 
right  as  a  people — that  is  what  the  Vigilantes 
said.  When  the  laws  failed  of  execution,  then 
it  was  the  people's  right  to  resume  the  power 
that  they  had  delegated,  or  which  had  been 
usurped  from  them — that  is  their  statement  as 
quoted  by  one  of  the  ablest  of  many  historians 
of  this  movement.  The  people  might  with- 
draw authority  when  faithless  servants  used  it 
to  thwart  justice — that  was  what  the  Vigilantes 
preached.  It  is  good  doctrine  to-day. 


98  The  Story  of 


Chapter  VI 

The  Outlaw  of  the  Mountains — The  Gold 
Stampedes  of  the  '60*5 — Armed  Bandits  of  the 
Mountain  Mining  Camps.  :::::: 

THE  greatest  of  American  gold  stam- 
pedes, and  perhaps  the  greatest  of 
the  world,  not  even  excepting  that  of 
Australia,  was  that  following  upon  the  discov- 
ery of  gold  in  California.  For  twenty  years 
all  the  West  was  mad  for  gold.  No  other  way 
would  serve  but  the  digging  of  wealth  directly 
from  the  soil.  Agriculture  was  too  slow,  com- 
merce too  tame,  to  satisfy  the  bold  population 
of  the  frontier.  The  history  of  the  first  strug- 
gle for  mining  claims  in  California — one  stam- 
pede after  another,  as  this,  that  and  the  other 
"strike"  was  reported  in  new  localities — was 
repeated  all  over  the  vast  region  of  the  au- 
riferous mountain  lands  lying  between  the 
plains  and  California,  which  were  swiftly  pros- 


The  Outlaw  99 

pected  by  men  who  had  now  learned  well  the 
prospector's  trade.  The  gold-hunters  lapped 
back  on  their  own  trails,  and,  no  longer  con- 
tent with  California,  began  to  prospect  lower 
Oregon,  upper  Idaho,  and  Western  Montana. 
Walla  Walla  was  a  supply  point  for  a  time. 
Florence  was  a  great  mountain  market,  and 
Lewiston.  One  district  after  another  sprang 
into  prominence,  to  fade  away  after  a  year  or 
two  of  feverish  life.  The  placers  near  Ban- 
nack  caught  a  wild  set  of  men,  who  surged 
back  from  California.  Oro  Fino  was  a  tem- 
porary capital;  then  the  fabulously  rich  placer 
which  made  Alder  Gulch  one  of  the  quickly 
perished  but  still  unforgotten  diggings. 

The  flat  valley  of  this  latter  gulch  housed 
several  "towns,"  but  was  really  for  a  dozen 
miles  a  continuous  string  of  miners'  cabins. 
The  city  of  Helena  is  built  on  the  tailings  of 
these  placer  washings,  and  its  streets  are  lit- 
erally paved  with  gold  even  to-day.  Here  in 
1863,  while  the  great  conflict  between  North 
and  South  was  raging,  a  great  community  of 
wild  men,  not  organized  into  anything  fit  to 
be  called  society,  divided  and  fought  bitterly 
for  control  of  the  apparently  exhaustless  wealth 
which  came  pouring  from  the  virgin  mines. 


ioo  The  Story  of 

These  clashing  factions  repeated,  in  intensified 
form,  the  history  of  California.  They  were 
even  more  utterly  cut  off  from  all  the  world. 
Letters  and  papers  from  the  states  had  to  reach 
the  mountains  by  way  of  California,  via  the 
Horn  or  the  Isthmus.  Touch  with  the  older 
civilization  was  utterly  lost;  of  law  there  was 
none. 

Upon  the  social  horizon  now  appeared  the 
sinister  figure  of  the  trained  desperado,  the 
professional  bad  man.  The  business  of  out- 
lawry was  turned  into  a  profession,  one  highly 
organized,  relatively  safe  and  extremely  lucra- 
tive. There  was  wealth  to  be  had  for  the  ask- 
ing or  the  taking.  Each  miner  had  his  buck- 
skin purse  filled  with  native  gold.  This  dust 
was  like  all  other  dust.  It  could  not  be  traced 
nor  identified;  and  the  old  saying,  u'Twas 
mine,  'tis  his,"  might  here  of  all  places  in  the 
world  most  easily  become  true.  Checks,  drafts, 
currency  as  we  know  it  now,  all  the  means  by 
which  civilized  men  keep  record  of  their  prop- 
erty transactions,  were  unknown.  The  gold- 
scales  established  the  only  currency,  and  each 
man  was  his  own  banker,  obliged  to  be  his  own 
peace  officer,  and  the  defender  of  his  own 
property. 


The  Outlaw  I  o  i 

Now  our  desperado  appeared,  the  man  who 
had  killed  his  man,  or,  more  likely,  several 
men,  and  who  had  not  been  held  sternly  to  an 
accounting  for  his  acts;  the  man  with  the  six- 
shooter  and  the  skill  to  use  it  more  swiftly  and 
accurately  than  the  average  man ;  the  man  with 
the  mind  which  did  not  scruple  at  murder.  He 
found  much  to  encourage  him,  little  to  oppose 
him.  "The  crowd  from  both  East  and  West 
had  now  arrived.  The  town  was  full  of  gold- 
hunters.  Expectation  lighted  up  the  counte- 
nance of  every  new-comer.  Few  had  yet  real- 
ized the  utter  despair  of  failure  in  a  mining 
camp.  In  the  presence  of  vice  in  all  its  forms, 
men  who  were  staid  and  exemplary  at  home  laid 
aside  their  morality  like  a  useless  garment,  and 
yielded  to  the  seductive  influences  spread  for 
their  ruin.  The  gambling-shops  and  hurdy- 
gurdy  saloons — beheld  for  the  first  time  by 
many  of  these  fortune-seekers — lured  them  on 
step  by  step,  until  many  of  them  abandoned  all 
thought  of  the  object  they  had  in  pursuit  for 
lives  of  shameful  and  criminal  indulgence. 
The  condition  of  society  thus  produced  was 
fatal  to  all  attempts  at  organization,  either  for 
protection  or  good  order." 

Yet  the  same  condition  made  opportunity 


102  The  Story  of 

for  those  who  did  not  wish  to  see  a  society  es- 
tablished. Wherever  the  law-abiding  did  not 
organize,  the  bandits  did;  and  the  strength  of 
their  party,  the  breadth  and  boldness  of  its 
operations,  and  the  length  of  time  it  carried 
on  its  unmolested  operations,  form  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  incidents  in  American  his- 
tory. They  killed,  robbed,  and  terrorized  over 
hundreds  of  miles  of  mountain  country,  for 
years  setting  at  defiance  all  attempts  at  their 
restraint.  They  recognized  no  command  ex- 
cept that  of  their  "chief,"  whose  title  was  al- 
ways open  to  contest,  and  who  gained  his  own 
position  only  by  being  more  skilful,  more 
bloodthirsty,  and  more  unscrupulous  than  his 
fellows. 

Henry  Plummer,  the  most  important  captain 
of  these  cut-throats  of  the  mountains,  had  a 
hundred  or  more  men  in  his  widely  scattered 
criminal  confederacy.  More  than  one  hundred 
murders  were  committed  by  these  banditti  in 
the  space  of  three  years.  Many  others  were, 
without  doubt,  committed  and  never  traced. 
Dead  bodies  were  common  in  those  hills,  and 
often  were  unidentified.  The  wanderer  from 
the  States  usually  kept  his  own  counsel.  None 
knew  who  his  family  might  be;  and  that  fam- 


The  Outlaw  103 

ily,  missing  a  member  who  disappeared  into  the 
maw  of  the  great  West  of  that  day  of  danger, 
might  never  know  the  fate  of  the  one  mysteri- 
ously vanished. 

These  robbers  had  their  confederates  scat- 
tered in  all  ranks  of  life.  Plummer  himself 
was  sheriff  of  his  county,  and  had  confederates 
in  deputies  or  city  marshals.  This  was  a 
strange  feature  of  this  old  desperadoism  in  the 
West — it  paraded  often  in  the  guise  of  the  law. 
We  shall  find  further  instances  of  this  same 
phenomenon.  Employes,  friends,  officials — 
there  was  none  that  one  might  trust.  The  or- 
ganization of  the  robbers  even  extended  to  the 
stage  lines,  and  a  regular  system  of  communi- 
cation existed  by  which  the  allies  advised  each 
other  when  and  where  such  and  such  a  pas- 
senger was  going,  with  such  and  such  an 
amount  of  gold  upon  him.  The  holding  up 
of  the  stage  was  something  regularly  expected, 
and  the  traveler  who  had  any  money  or  valu- 
ables drew  a  long  breath  when  he  reached  a 
region  where  there  was  really  a  protecting  law. 
Men  were  shot  down  in  the  streets  on  little  or 
no  provocation,  and  the  murderer  boasted  of 
his  crime  and  defied  punishment.  The  dance- 
halls  were  run  day  and  night.  The  drinking 


IO4  The  Story  of 

of  whiskey,  and,  moreover,  bad  whiskey,  was 
a  thing  universal.  Vice  was  everywhere  and 
virtue  was  not.  Those  few  who  had  an  aim 
and  an  ambition  in  life  were  long  in  the  minor- 
ity and,  in  the  welter  of  a  general  license,  they 
might  not  recognize  each  other  and  join  hands. 
Murder  and  pillage  ruled,  until  at  length  the 
spirit  of  law  and  order,  born  anew  of  neces- 
sity, grew  and  gained  power  as  it  did  in  most 
early  communities  of  the  West.  How  these 
things  in  time  took  place  may  best  be  seen  by 
reference  to  the  bloody  biographies  of  some  of 
the  most  reckless  desperadoes  ever  seen  in  any 
land. 


The  Outlaw  105 


Chapter  VII 

Henry  Plummer — A  Northern  Bad  Man — 
The  Head  of  the  Robber  Band  in  the  Montana 
Mining  Country — A  Man  of  Brains  and  Abil- 
ity, but  a  Cold-Blooded  Murderer.  :  :  : 

HENRY  PLUMMER  was  for  several 
years  in  the  early  '6o's  the  "chief" 
of  the  widely  extended  band  of  rob- 
bers and  murderers  who  kept  the  placer-mining 
fields  of  Montana  and  Idaho  in  a  state  of  ter- 
ror. Posing  part  of  the  time  as  an  officer  of 
the  law,  he  was  all  the  time  the  leader  in  the 
reign  of  lawlessness.  He  was  always  ready  for 
combat,  and  he  so  relied  upon  his  own  skill  that 
he  would  even  give  his  antagonist  the  advan- 
tage— or  just  enough  advantage  to  leave  him- 
self sure  to  kill  him.  His  victims  in  duels  of 
this  sort  were  many,  and,  as  to  his  victims  in 
cold-blooded  robbery,  in  which  death  wiped 
out  the  record,  no  one  will  ever  know  the  list. 
Plummer  was  born  in  Connecticut  in  1837, 


106  The  Story  of 

and,  until  his  departure  as  a  young  man  for 
the  West,  he  was  all  that  might  be  expected 
of  one  brought  up  under  the  chastening  influ- 
ences of  a  New  England  home.  He  received 
a  good  education,  and  became  a  polished,  af- 
fable, and  gentlemanly  appearing  man.  He 
was  about  five  feet  ten,  possibly  five  feet  eleven 
inches  in  height,  and  weighed  about  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  pounds,  being  rather  slender  in 
appearance.  His  face  was  handsome  and  his 
demeanor  always  frank  and  open,  although  he 
was  quiet  and  did  not  often  talk  unless  accosted. 
His  voice  was  low  and  pleasant,  and  he  had  no 
bravado  or  swagger  about  him.  His  eye  was 
light  in  color  and  singularly  devoid  of  expres- 
sion. Two  features  gave  him  a  sinister  look — 
his  forehead,  which  was  low  and  brutish,  and 
his  eye,  which  was  cold  and  fish-like.  His  was 
a  strong,  well-keyed  nervous  organization.  He 
was  quick  as  a  cat  when  in  action,  though  ap- 
parently suave  and  easy  in  disposition.  He  was 
a  good  pistol  shot,  perhaps  the  best  of  all  the 
desperadoes  who  infested  Idaho  and  Montana 
at  that  time.  Not  even  in  his  cups  did  he  lose 
control  of  voice  and  eye  and  weapon.  He  was 
always  ready — a  cool,  quiet,  self-possessed, 
well-regulated  killing  machine. 


The   Outlaw  107 

At  the  date  of  Plummer's  arrival  in  the  min- 
ing country,  the  town  of  Lewiston,  Idaho,  was 
the  emporium  of  a  wide  region  then  embraced 
under  the  name  of  Idaho  Territory;  the  latter 
also  including  Montana  at  that  time.  Where 
his  life  had  been  spent  previous  to  that  is  not 
known,  but  it  is  thought  that  he  came  over  from 
California.  Plummer  set  up  as  a  gambler,  and 
this  gave  him  the  key  to  the  brotherhood  of  the 
bad.  Gamblers  usually  stick  together  pretty 
closely,  and  institute  a  sort  of  free-masonry 
of  their  own;  so  that  Plummer  was  not  long 
in  finding,  among  men  of  his  own  profession 
and  their  associates,  a  number  of  others  whom 
he  considered  safe  to  take  into  his  confidence. 
Every  man  accepted  by  Plummer  was  a  mur- 
derer. He  would  have  no  weaklings.  No  one 
can  tell  how  many  victims  his  associates  had 
had  before  they  went  into  his  alliance;  but  it 
is  sure  that  novices  in  man-killing  were  not  de- 
sired, nor  any  who  had  not  been  proved  of 
nerve.  Plummer  soon  had  so  many  men  that 
he  set  up  a  rendezvous  at  points  on  all  the  trails 
leading  out  from  Lewiston  to  such  mines  as 
were  producing  any  gold.  One  robbery  fol- 
lowed another,  until  the  band  threw  off  all 
restraint  and  ran  the  towns  as  they  liked,  pay- 


io8  The  Story  of 

ing  for  what  they  took  when  they  felt  like  it, 
and  laughing  at  the  protests  of  the  minority 
of  the  population,  which  was  placed  in  the  hard 
strait  of  being  in  that  country  and  unable  to  get 
out  without  being  robbed.  It  was  the  inten- 
tion to  seize  the  property  of  every  man  who 
was  there  and  who  was  not  accepted  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  gang. 

One  killing  after  another  occurred  on  the 
trails,  and  man  after  man  was  lost  and  never 
traced.  Assaults  were  made  upon  many  men 
who  escaped,  but  no  criminal  could  be  located, 
and,  indeed,  there  was  no  law  by  which  any  of 
them  could  be  brought  to  book.  The  express 
riders  were  fired  upon  and  robbed  and  the  pack 
trains  looted.  No  man  expected  to  cross  the 
mountain  trails  without  meeting  some  of  the 
robbers,  and,  when  he  did  meet  them,  he  ex- 
pected to  be  killed  if  he  made  resistance,  for 
they  outnumbered  the  parties  they  attacked  in 
nearly  all  instances.  The  outlaws  were  now 
indeed  about  three  times  as  numerous  as  those 
not  in  sympathy  with  them. 

Rendered  desperate  by  this  state  of  affairs, 
a  few  resolute  citizens  who  wanted  law  and 
order  found  each  other  out  at  last  and  organ- 
ized into  a  vigilance  committee,  remembering 


The  Outlaw  109 

the  success  of  the  Vigilantes  of  California, 
whose  work  was  still  recent  history.  Plummer 
himself  was  among  the  first  to  join  this  em- 
bryonic vigilante  movement,  as  was  the  case 
in  so  many  other  similar  movements  in  other 
parts  of  the  West,  where  the  criminal  joined 
the  law-loving  in  order  to  find  out  what  the  lat- 
ter intended  to  do.  His  address  was  such  as 
to  disarm  completely  all  suspicion,  and  he  had 
full  knowledge  of  facts  which  enabled  him  to 
murder  for  vengeance  as  well  as  for  gain. 

After  Oro  Fino  was  worked  out  as  a  placer 
field,  the  prospectors  located  other  grounds 
east  of  the  Salmon  River  range,  at  Elk  City 
and  Florence,  and  soon  Lewiston  was  forsaken, 
all  the  population  trooping  off  over  the  moun- 
tains to  the  new  fields.  This  broke  up  the 
vigilante  movement  in  its  infancy,  and  gave 
Plummer  a  longer  lease  of  life  for  his  plans. 
All  those  who  had  joined  the  vigilante  move- 
ment were  marked  men.  One  after  another 
they  were  murdered,  none  knew  by  whom,  or 
why.  Masked  robbers  were  seen  every  day 
along  the  trails  leading  between  one  remote 
mining  camp  and  another,  but  no  one  suspected 
Henry  Plummer,  who  was  serving  well  in  his 
double  role. 


no  The  Story  of 

Meantime,  additional  placer  grounds  had 
been  discovered  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  south 
of  Florence,  on  the  Boise  river,  and  some  val- 
uable strikes  were  also  made  far  to  the  north, 
at  the  upper  waters  of  the  Beaverhead.  All  the 
towns  to  the  westward  were  now  abandoned, 
and  the  miners  left  Florence  as  madly  as  they 
had  rushed  to  it  from  Oro  Fino  and  Elk  City. 
West  Bannack  and  East  Bannack  were  now  all 
the  cry.  To  these  new  points,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, the  organized  band  of  robbers  fled  with 
the  others.  Plummer,  who  had  tried  Elk  City, 
Deer  Lodge,  and  other  points,  now  appeared 
at  Bannack. 

One  after  another  reports  continued  to  come 
of  placers  discovered  here  and  there  in  the 
upper  Rockies.  Among  all  these,  the  strikes  on 
Gold  Creek  proved  to  be  the  most  extensive  and 
valuable.  A  few  Eastern  men,  almost  by  acci- 
dent, had  found  fair  "pay"  there,  and  returned 
to  that  locality  when  they  found  themselves 
unable  to  get  across  the  snow-covered  moun- 
tains to  Florence.  These  few  men  at  the  Gold 
Creek  diggings  got  large  additions  from  expe- 
ditions made  up  in  Denver  and  bound  for  Flor- 
ence, who  also  were  unable  to  get  across  the 
Salmon  River  mountains.  Yet  others  came 


The  Outlaw  1 1 1 

out  in  the  summer  of  1862,  by  way  of  the 
upper  plains  and  the  Missouri  river,  so  that 
the  accident  of  the  season,  so  to  speak,  turned 
aside  the  traffic  intended  to  reach  Florence  into 
quite  another  region.  This  fact,  as  events 
proved,  had  much  to  do  with  the  later  fate  of 
Henry  Plummer  and  his  associates. 

These  Eastern  men  were  different  from  those 
who  had  been  schooled  in  the  mines  of  the 
Pacific  Slope.  They  still  clung  to  law  and 
order;  and  they  did  not  propose  to  be  robbed. 
The  first  news  of  the  strikes  brought  over  the 
advance  guard  of  the  roughs  who  had  been  run- 
ning the  other  camps;  and,  as  soon  as  these 
were  unmasked  by  acts  of  their  own,  the  little 
advance  guard  of  civilization  shot  one  of  them, 
Arnett,  and  hung  two  others,  Jernigan  and 
Spillman.  This  was  the  real  beginning  of  a 
permanent  vigilante  force  in  Montana.  It 
afforded  perhaps  the  only  known  instance  of 
a  man  being  buried  with  a  six-shooter  in  one 
hand  and  a  hand  of  cards  in  the  other.  Arnett 
was  killed  in  a  game  of  cards,  and  died  with 
his  death  grip  thus  fixed. 

The  new  diggings  did  not  at  first  prove 
themselves,  and  the  camp  at  Bannack,  on  Grass- 
hopper Creek,  was  more  prosperous.  Henry 


H2  The  Story  of 

Plummer,  therefore,  elected  Bannack  as  his 
headquarters,  Others  of  the  loosely  connected 
banditti  began  to  drop  into  Bannack  from  other 
districts,  and  Plummer  was  soon  surrounded  by 
his  clan  and  kin  in  crime.  George  Ives,  Bill 
Mitchell,  Charlie  Reeves,  Cy  Skinner,  and 
others  began  operations  on  the  same  lines  which 
had  so  distinguished  them  at  the  earlier  dig- 
gings, west  of  the  range.  In  a  few  weeks  Ban- 
nack was  as  bad  as  Lewlston  or  Florence  had 
ever  been.  In  fact,  it  became  so  bad  that  the 
Vigilantes  began  to  show  their  teeth,  although 
they  confined  their  sentences  to  banishment. 
The  black  sheep  and  the  white  began  now  to 
be  segregated. 

Plummer,  shrewd  to  see  the  drift  of  opinion, 
saw  that  he  must  now  play  his  hand  out  to  the 
finish,  that  he  could  not  now  reform.  He  ac- 
cordingly laid  his  plans  to  kill  Jack  Crawford, 
who  was  chosen  as  miners'  sheriff.  Plummer 
undertook  one  expedient  after  another  to  draw 
Crawford  into  a  quarrel,  in  which  he  knew  he 
could  kill  him;  for  Plummer' s  speed  with  the 
pistol  had  been  proved  when  he  killed  Jack 
Cleveland,  one  of  his  own  best  gun-fighters. 
Rumor  ran  that  he  was  the  best  pistol  shot  in 
the  Rockies  and  as  bad  a  man  as  the  worst. 


The  Outlaw  113 

Plummer  thought  that  Crawford  suspected  him 
of  belonging  to  the  bandits,  and  so  doomed 
him.  Crawford  was  wary,  and  defeated  three 
separate  attempts  to  waylay  and  kill  him,  be- 
sides avoiding  several  quarrels  that  were  thrust 
upon  him  by  Plummer  or  his  men.  Dick 
Phleger,  a  friend  of  Crawford,  was  also 
marked  by  Plummer,  who  challenged  him  to 
fight  with  pistols,  as  he  frequently  had  chal- 
lenged Crawford.  Phleger  was  a  braver  man 
than  Crawford,  but  he  declined  the  duel. 
Plummer  would  have  killed  them  both.  He 
only  wanted  the  appearance  of  an  "even  break," 
with  the  later  plea  of  "self-defence, "  which  has 
shielded  so  many  bad  men  from  punishment 
for  murder. 

Plummer  now  tried  treachery,  and  told 
Crawford  they  would  be  friends.  All  the  time 
he  was  hunting  a  chance  to  kill  him.  At  length 
he  held  Crawford  up  in  a  restaurant,  and  stood 
waiting  for  him  with  a  rifle.  A  friend  handed 
Crawford  a  rifle,  and  the  latter  slipped  up  and 
took  a  shot  from  the  corner  of  the  house  at 
Plummer,  who  was  across  the  street.  The  ball 
struck  Plummer's  right  arm  and  tore  it  to 
pieces.  Crawford  missed  him  with  a  second 
shot,  and  Plummer  walked  back  to  his  own 


H4  The  Story  of 

cabin.  Here  he  had  a  long  siege  with  his 
wound,  refusing  to  allow  his  arm  to  be  ampu- 
tated, since  he  knew  he  might  as  well  be  dead 
as  so  crippled.  He  finally  recovered,  although 
the  ball  was  never  removed  and  the  bone  never 
knit.  The  ball  lodged  in  his  wrist  and  was 
found  there  after  his  death,  worn  smooth  as 
silver  by  the  action  of  the  bones.  Crawford 
escaped  down  the  Missouri  river,  to  which  he 
fled  at  Fort  Benton.  He  never  came  back  to 
the  country.  Plummer  went  on  practising  with 
the  six-shooter  with  his  left  hand,  and  became 
a  very  good  left-hand  shot.  He  knew  that  his 
only  safety  lay  in  his  skill  with  weapons. 

Plummer's  physician  was  Dr.  Click,  who 
operated  under  cover  of  a  shotgun,  and  with 
the  cheerful  assurance  that  if  he  killed  Plum- 
mer by  accident,  he  himself  would  be  killed. 
After  that  Click  dressed  the  wounds  of  more 
than  one  outlaw,  but  dared  not  tell  of  it. 
Plummer  admitted  to  him  at  last  that  these 
were  his  men  and  told  Click  he  would  kill  him 
if  he  ever  breathed  a  word  of  this  confidence. 
So  the  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  ban- 
ditti was  known  to  one  man  for  a  long  time. 

As  to  Bannack,  it  was  one  of  the  wildest 
camps  ever  known  in  any  land.  Pistol  fire  was 


The  Outlaw  115 

heard  incessantly,  and  one  victim  after  another 
was  added  to  the  list.  George  Ives,  Johnny 
Cooper,  George  Carrhart,  Hayes  Lyons,  Cy 
Skinner,  and  others  of  the  toughs  were  now 
open  associates  of  the  leading  spirit,  Plummer. 
The  condition  of  lawlessness  and  terror  was 
such  that  all  the  decent  men  would  have  gone 
back  to  the  States,  but  the  same  difficulties  that 
had  kept  them  from  getting  across  to  Florence 
now  kept  them  from  getting  back  East.  The 
winter  held  them  prisoners. 

Henry  Plummer  was  now  elected  sheriff  for 
the  Bannack  mining  district,  to  succeed  Craw- 
ford, whom  he  had  run  out  of  the  country.  It 
seems  very  difficult  to  understand  how  this 
could  have  occurred;  but  it  will  serve  to  show 
the  numerical  strength  of  Plummer's  party. 
The  latter,  now  married,  professed  to  have  re- 
formed. In  reality,  he  was  deeper  in  deviltry 
than  ever  in  his  life. 

The  diggings  at  Gold  Creek  and  Bannack 
were  now  eclipsed  by  the  sensational  discoveries 
on  the  famous  Alder  Gulch,  one  of  the  phe- 
nomenal placers  of  the  world,  and  the  most 
productive  ever  known  in  America.  The  stam- 
pede was  fast  and  furious  to  these  new  dig- 
gings. In  ten  days  the  gulch  was  staked  out 


n6  The  Story  of 

for  twelve  miles,  and  the  cabins  of  the  miners 
were  occupied  for  all  of  that  distance,  and  scat- 
tered over  a  long,  low  flat,  whose  vegetation 
was  quickly  swept  away.  The  new  camp  that 
sprung  up  on  one  end  of  this  bar  was  called 
Virginia  City.  It  need  not  be  said  that  among 
the  first  settlers  there  were  the  outlaws  earlier 
mentioned,  with  several  others:  Jack  Galla- 
gher, Buck  Stinson,  Ned  Ray,  and  others,  these 
three  named  being  "deputies"  of  "Sheriff" 
Plummer.  A  sort  of  court  was  formed  for 
trying  disputed  mining  claims.  Charley  Forbes 
was  clerk  of  this  court,  and  incidentally  one  of 
Plummer's  band!  This  clerk  and  these  depu- 
ties killed  one  Dillingham,  whom  they  sus- 
pected of  informing  a  friend  of  a  robbery 
planned  to  make  away  with  him  on  the  trail 
from  Bannack  to  Virginia  City.  They  were 
"tried"  by  the  court  and  freed.  Hayes  Lyons 
admitted  privately  that  Plummer  had  told  him 
to  kill  the  informer  Dillingham.  The  invari- 
able plan  of  this  bloodthirsty  man  was  to  de- 
stroy unfavorable  testimony  by  means  of  death. 
The  unceasing  flood  of  gold  from  the  seem- 
ingly exhaustless  gulch  caused  three  or  four 
more  little  camps  or  towns  to  spring  up;  but 
Virginia  City  now  took  the  palm  for  frontier 


The  Outlaw  117 

reputation  in  hardness.  Ten  millions  in  udust" 
was  washed  out  in  one  year.  Every  one  had 
gold,  sacks  and  cans  of  it.  The  wild  license  of 
the  place  was  unspeakably  vitiating.  Fights 
with  weapons  were  incessant.  Rude  dance 
halls  and  saloons  were  crowded  with  truculent, 
armed  men  in  search  of  trouble.  Churches  and 
schools  were  unknown.  Tents,  log  cabins,  and 
brush  shanties  made  the  residences.  "Hacks 
rattled  to  and  fro  between  the  several  towns, 
freighted  with  drunken  and  rowdy  humanity 
of  both  sexes.  Citizens  of  acknowledged  re- 
spectability often  walked,  more  often  perhaps 
rode  side  by  side  on  horseback,  with  noted 
courtesans,  in  open  day,  through  the  crowded 
streets,  and  seemingly  suffered  no  harm  in  repu- 
tation. Pistols  flashed,  bowie-knives  flourished, 
oaths  filled  the  air.  This  was  indeed  the  reign 
of  unbridled  license,  and  men  who  at  first  re- 
garded it  with  disgust  and  terror,  by  constant 
exposure  soon  learned  to  become  part  of  it,  and 
to  forget  that  they  had  ever  been  aught  else. 
Judges,  lawyers,  doctors,  even  clergymen,  could 
not  claim  exemption." 

This  was  in  1863.  At  that  time,  the  nearest 
capitals  were  Olympia,  on  Puget  Sound;  Yank- 
ton,  two  thousand  miles  away;  and  Lewiston, 


n8  The  Story  of 

seven  hundred  miles  away.  What  machinery 
of  the  law  was  there  to  hinder  Plummer  and 
his  men  ?  What  better  field  than  this  one,  liter- 
ally overflowing  with  gold,  could  they  have 
asked  for  their  operations?  And  what  better 
chief  than  Plummer? 

His  next  effort  was  to  be  appointed  deputy 
United  States  marshal,  and  he  received  the  in- 
dorsement of  the  leading  men  of  Bannack. 
Plummer  afterward  tried  several  times  to  kill 
Nathaniel  P.  Langford,  who  caused  his  defeat, 
but  was  unsuccessful  in  getting  the  opportunity 
he  sought. 

From  Bannack  to  Salt  Lake  City  was  about 
five  hundred  miles.  Mails  by  this  time  came 
in  from  Salt  Lake  City,  which  was  the  supply 
point.  If  a  man  wanted  to  send  out  gold  to 
his  people  in  the  States,  it  had  to  go  over  this 
long  trail  across  the  wild  regions.  There  was 
no  mail  service,  and  no  express  office  nearer 
than  Salt  Lake.  Merchants  sent  out  their 
funds  by  private  messenger.  Every  such  jour- 
ney was  a  risk  of  death.  Plummer  had  clerks 
in  every  institution  that  was  making  money, 
and  these  kept  him  posted  as  to  the  times  when 
shipments  of  dust  were  about  to  be  made;  they 
also  told  him  when  any  well-staked  miner  was 


The  Outlaw  119 

going  out  to  the  States.  Plummer's  men  were 
posted  all  along  these  mountain  trails.  No  one 
will  ever  know  how  many  men  were  killed  in  all 
on  the  Salt  Lake  trail. 

There  was  a  stage  also  between  Bannack  and 
Virginia  City,  and  this  was  regarded  as  a  legiti- 
mate and  regular  booty  producer  by  the  gang. 
Whenever  a  rich  passenger  took  stage,  a  con- 
federate at  the  place  put  a  mark  on  the  vehicle 
so  that  it  could  be  read  at  the  next  stop.  At 
this  point  there  was  sure  to  be  others  of  the 
gang,  who  attended  to  further  details.  Some- 
times two  or  three  thousand  dollars  would  be 
taken  from  a  single  passenger.  A  stage  often 
carried  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  dollars  in 
dust.  Plummer  knew  when  and  where  and  how 
each  stage  was  robbed,  but  in  his  capacity  as 
sheriff  covered  up  the  traces  of  all  his  asso- 
ciates. 

The  robbers  who  did  the  work  were  usually 
masked,  and  although  suspicions  were  rife  and 
mutterings  began  to  grow  louder,  there  was  no 
actual  evidence  against  Plummer  until  one  day 
he  held  up  a  young  man  by  name  of  Tilden, 
who  voiced  his  belief  that  he  knew  the  man 
who  had  held  him  up.  Further  evidence  was 
soon  to  follow.  A  pack-train,  bound  for  Salt 


I2O  The  Story  of 

Lake,  had  no  less  than  eighty  thousand  dollars 
in  dust  in  its  charge,  and  Plummer  had  sent  out 
Dutch  John  and  Steve  Marshland  to  hold  up 
the  train.  The  freighters  were  too  plucky,  and 
both  the  bandits  were  wounded,  and  so  marked, 
although  for  the  time  they  escaped.  George 
Ives  also  was  recognized  by  one  or  two  victims 
and  began  to  be  watched  on  account  of  his 
numerous  open  murders. 

At  length,  the  dead  body  of  a  young  man 
named  Tiebalt  was  found  in  a  thicket  near 
Alder  Gulch,  under  circumstances  showing  a  re- 
volting murder.  At  last  the  slumbering  spirit 
of  the  Vigilantes  began  to  awaken.  Two  dozen 
men  of  the  camp  went  out  and  arrested  Long 
John,  George  Ives,  Alex  Carter,  Whiskey  Bill, 
Bob  Zachary,  and  Johnny  Cooper.  These  men 
were  surprised  in  their  camp,  and  among  their 
long  list  of  weapons  were  some  that  had  been 
taken  from  men  who  had  been  robbed  or  mur- 
dered. These  weapons  were  identified  by 
friends.  Old  Tex  was  another  man  taken  in 
charge,  and  George  Hilderman  yet  another. 
All  these  men  wanted  a  "jury  trial,"  and  wanted 
it  at  Virginia  City,  where  Plummer  would  have 
official  influence  enough  to  get  his  associates  re- 
leased! The  captors,  however,  were  men  from 


The  Outlaw  121 

Nevada,  the  other  leading  camp  in  Alder  Gulch, 
and  they  took  their  prisoners  there. 

At  once  a  Plummer  man  hastened  out  on 
horseback  to  get  the  chief  on  the  ground,  rid- 
ing all  night  across  the  mountains  to  Bannack 
to  carry  the  news  that  the  citizens  had  at  last 
rebelled  against  anarchy,  robbery,  and  murder. 
On  the  following  morning,  two  thousand  men 
had  gathered  at  Nevada  City,  and  had  resolved 
to  try  the  outlaws.  As  there  was  rivalry  be- 
tween Virginia  and  Nevada  camps,  a  jury  was 
made  up  of  twenty-four  men,  twelve  from  each 
camp.  The  miners'  court,  most  dread  of  all 
tribunals,  was  in  session. 

Some  forms  of  the  law  were  observed.  Long 
John  was  allowed  to  turn  state's  evidence.  He 
swore  that  George  Ives  had  killed  Tiebalt,  and 
declared  that  he  shot  him  while  Tiebalt  was  on 
his  knees  praying,  after  he  had  been  told  that 
he  must  die.  Then  a  rope  was  put  around  his 
neck  and  he  was  dragged  to  a  place  of  conceal- 
ment in  the  thicket  where  the  body  was  found. 
Tiebalt  was  not  dead  while  so  dragged,  for 
his  hands  were  found  full  of  grass  and  twigs 
which  he  had  clutched.  Ives  was  condemned  to 
death,  and  the  law  and  order  men  were  strong 
enough  to  suppress  the  armed  disturbance  at 


122  The  Story  of 

once  started  by  his  friends,  none  of  whom  could 
realize  that  the  patient  citizens  were  at  last 
taking  the  law  into  their  own  hands.  A  scaf- 
fold was  improvised  and  Ives  was  hung, — the 
first  of  the  Plummer  gang  to  meet  retribution. 
The  others  then  in  custody  were  allowed  to  go 
under  milder  sentences. 

The  Vigilantes  now  organized  with  vigor 
and  determination.  One  bit  of  testimony  was 
added  to  another,  and  one  man  now  dared  to 
voice  his  suspicions  to  another.  Twenty-five 
determined  men  set  out  to  secure  others  of  the 
gang  now  known  to  have  been  united  in  this 
long  brotherhood.  Some  of  these  men  were 
now  fleeing  the  country,  warned  by  the  fate  of 
Ives ;  but  the  Vigilantes  took  Red  Yager  and 
Buck  Stinson  and  Ned  Ray,  two  of  them  Plum- 
mer's  deputies,  as  well  as  another  confederate 
named  Brown.  The  party  stopped  at  the  Lo- 
rain  Ranch,  near  a  cottonwood  grove,  and  tried 
their  prisoners  without  going  into  town!  Red 
Yager  confessed  in  full  before  he  was  hung, 
and  it  was  on  his  testimony  that  the  whole 
secret  league  of  robbers  was  exposed  and  event- 
ually brought  to  justice.  He  gave  the  follow- 
ing list: 

Henry  Plummer  was  chief  of  the  gang;  Bill 


The  Outlaw  123 

Bunton,  stool-pigeon  and  second  in  command; 
George  Brown,  secretary;  Sam  Bunton,  road- 
ster; Cyrus  Skinner,  fence,  spy  and  roadster; 
George  Shears,  horse  thief  and  roadster;  Frank 
Parish,  horse  thief  and  roadster;  Bill  Hunter, 
telegraph  man  and  roadster;  Ned  Ray,  council- 
room  keeper  at  Bannack  City;  George  Ives, 
Stephen  Marshland,  Dutch  John  (Wagner), 
Alex  Carter,  Whiskey  Bill  (Graves),  Johnny 
Cooper,  Buck  Stinson,  Mexican  Frank,  Bob 
Zachary,  Boone  Helm,  Clubfoot  George 
(Lane),  Billy  Terwilliger,  Gad  Moore,  were 
roadsters. 

The  noose  was  now  tightening  around  the 
neck  of  the  outlaw,  Henry  Plummer,  whose 
adroitness  had  so  long  stood  him  in  good  stead. 
The  honest  miners  found  that  their  sheriff  was 
the  leader  of  the  outlaws !  His  doom  was  said 
then  and  there,  with  that  of  all  these  others. 

A  party  of  the  Virginia  City  law  and  order 
men  slipped  over  to  Bannack,  Henry  Plum- 
mer's  home.  In  a  few  hours  the  news  had 
spread  of  what  had  happened  at  the  other 
camps,  and  a  branch  organization  of  the  Vigi- 
lantes was  formed  for  Bannack.  Stinson  and 
Ray  were  now  arrested,  and  then  Plummer  him- 
self, the  chief,  the  brains  of  all  this  long-secret 


124  The  Story  of 

band  of  marauders.  He  was  surprised  with  his 
coat  and  arms  off,  and  taken  prisoner.  A  few 
moments  later,  he  was  facing  a  scaffold,  where, 
as  sheriff,  he  had  lately  hung  a  man.  The  law 
had  no  delays.  No  court  could  quibble  here. 
Not  all  Plummer's  wealth  could  save  him  now, 
nor  all  his  intellect  and  cool  audacity. 

An  agony  of  remorse  and  fear  now  came 
upon  the  outlaw*  chief.  He  fell  upon  his  knees, 
called  upon  God  to  save  him,  begged,  pleaded, 
wept  like  a  child,  declared  that  he  was  too 
wicked  to  die  thus  soon  and  unprepared.  It 
was  useless.  The  full  proof  of  all  his  many 
crimes  was  laid  before  him. 

Ray,  writhing  and  cursing,  was  the  first  to 
be  hanged.  He  got  his  finger  under  the  rope 
around  his  neck  and  died  hard,  but  died.  Stin- 
son,  also  cursing,  went  next.  It  was  then  time 
for  Plummer,  and  those  who  had  this  work  in 
hand  felt  compunction  at  hanging  a  man  so 
able,  so  urbane  and  so  commanding.  None  the 
less,  he  was  told  to  prepare.  He  asked  for  time 
to  pray,  and  was  told  to  pray  from  the  cross- 
beam. He  said  good-by  to  a  friend  or  two,  and 
asked  his  executioners  to  "give  him  a  good 
drop."  He  seemed  to  fear  suffering,  he  who 
had  caused  so  much  suffering.  To  oblige  him, 


The  Outlaw  125 

the  men  lifted  his  body  high  up  and  let  it  fall, 
and  he  died  with  little  struggle. 

To  cut  short  a  long  story  of  bloody  justice, 
it  may  be  added  that  of  the  men  named  as 
guilty  by  Yager  every  one  was  arrested,  tried, 
and  hung  by  the  Vigilantes.  Plummer  for  some 
time  must  have  dreaded  detection,  for  he  tried 
to  cover  up  his  guilt  by  writing  back  home  to 
the  States  that  he  was  in  danger  of  being 
hanged  on  account  of  his  Union  sympathies. 
His  family  would  not  believe  his  guilt,  and 
looked  on  him  as  a  martyr.  They  sent  out  a 
brother  and  sister  to  look  into  the  matter,  but 
these  too  found  proof  which  left  them  no  chance 
to  doubt.  The  whole  ghastly  revelation  of  a 
misspent  life  lay  before  them.  Even  Plummer's 
wife,  whom  he  loved  very  much  and  who  was 
a  good  woman,  was  at  last  convinced  of  what 
at  first  she  could  not  believe.  Plummer  had 
been  able  to  conceal  from  even  his  wife  the  least 
suspicion  that  was  not  an  honorable  man.  His 
wife  was  east  in  the  States  at  the  time  of  his 
death. 

Plummer  went  under  his  true  name.  George 
Ives  was  a  Wisconsin  boy  from  near  Racine. 
Both  he  and  Plummer  were  twenty-seven  years 
of  age  when  killed,  but  they  had  compressed 


126  The   Story  of 

much  evil  into  so  short  a  span.  Plummer  him- 
self was  a  master  of  men,  a  brave  and  cool 
spirit,  an  expert  with  weapons,  and  in  all  not  a 
bad  specimen  of  the  bad  man  at  his  worst.  He 
was  a  murderer,  but  after  all  was  not  enough  a 
murderer.  No  outlaw  of  later  years  so  closely 
resembled  the  great  outlaw,  John  A.  Murrell, 
as  did  Henry  Plummer,  but  the  latter  differed 
in  one  regard: — he  spared  victims,  who  later 
arose  to  accuse  him. 

The  frontier  has  produced  few  bloodier  rec- 
ords than  Plummer's.  He  was  principal  or 
accessory,  as  has  been  stated,  in  more  than  one 
hundred  murders,  not  to  mention  innumerable 
robberies  and  thefts.  His  life  was  lived  out 
in  scenes  typical  of  the  early  Western  frontier. 
The  madness  of  adventure  in  new  wild  fields, 
the  lust  of  gold  and  its  unparalleled  abundance 
drove  to  crime  men  who  might  have  been  re- 
spected and  of  note  in  proper  ranks  of  life  and 
in  other  surroundings. 


The   Outlaw  127 


Chapter  VIII 

Boone  Helm — A  Murderer,  Cannibal,  and 
Robber — A  Typical  Specimen  of  Absolute 
Human  Depravity.  :::::: 

HENRY  PLUMMER  was  what  might 
be  called  a  good  instance  of  the  gen- 
tleman desperado,  if  such  a  thing  be 
possible;  a  man  of  at  least  a  certain  amount  of 
refinement,  and  certainly  one  who,  under  dif- 
ferent surroundings,  might  have  led  a  different 
life.  For  the  sake  of  contrast,  if  for  nothing 
else,  we  may  take  the  case  of  Boone  Helm,  one 
of  Plummer's  gang,  who  was  the  opposite  of 
Plummer  in  every  way  except  the  readiness  to 
rob  and  kill.  Boone  Helm  was  bad,  and  noth- 
ing in  the  world  could  ever  have  made  him 
anything  but  bad.  He  was,  by  birth  and  breed- 
ing, low,  coarse,  cruel,  animal-like  and  utterly 
depraved,  and  for  him  no  name  but  ruffian  can 
fitly  apply. 


128  The  Story  of 

Helm  was  born  in  Kentucky,  but  his  family 
moved  to  Missouri  during  his  early  youth,  so 
that  the  boy  was  brought  up  on  the  borderland 
between  civilization  and  the  savage  frontier; 
for  this  was  about  the  time  of  the  closing  days 
of  the  old  Santa  Fe  Trail,  and  the  towns  of  In- 
dependence and  Westport  were  still  sending 
out  their  wagon  trains  to  the  far  mountain  re- 
gions. By  the  time  Boone  Helm  was  grown, 
and  soon  after  his  marriage,  the  great  gold 
craze  of  California  broke  out,  and  he  joined 
the  rush  westward.  Already  he  was  a  mur- 
derer, and  already  he  had  a  reputation  as  a 
quarrelsome  and  dangerous  man.  He  was  of 
powerful  build  and  turbulent  temper,  delight- 
ing in  nothing  so  much  as  feats  of  strength, 
skill,  and  hardihood.  His  community  was  glad 
to  be  rid  of  him,  as  was,  indeed,  any  community 
in  which  he  ever  lived. 

In  the  California  diggings,  Helm  continued 
the  line  of  life  mapped  out  for  him  from  birth. 
He  met  men  of  his  own  kidney  there,  and  was 
ever  ready  for  a  duel  with  weapons.  In  this 
way  he  killed  several  men,  no  one  knows  how 
many;  but  this  sort  of  thing  was  so  common 
in  the  case  of  so  many  men  in  those  days  that 
little  attention  was  paid  to  it.  It  must  have 


The   Outlaw  129 

been  a  very  brutal  murder  which  at  length 
caused  him  to  flee  the  Coast  to  escape  the  ven- 
geance of  the  miners.  He  headed  north  and 
east,  after  a  fashion  of  the  times  following 
the  California  boom,  and  was  bound  for  the 
mountain  placers  in  1853,  when  he  is  recorded 
as  appearing  at  the  Dalles,  Oregon.  He  and 
a  half-dozen  companions,  whom  he  had  picked 
up  on  the  way,  and  most  of  whom  were 
strangers  to  each  other,  now  started  out  for 
Fort  Hall,  Idaho,  intending  to  go  from  there 
to  a  point  below  Salt  Lake  City. 

The  beginning  of  the  terrible  mountain  win- 
ter season  caught  these  men  somewhere  west  of 
the  main  range  in  eastern  Oregon,  in  the 
depths  of  as  rugged  a  mountain  region  as  any 
of  the  West.  They  were  on  horseback,  and  so 
could  carry  small  provisions;  but  in  some  way 
they  pushed  on  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
mountains,  until  they  got  to  the  Bannack  river, 
where  they  were  attacked  by  Indians  and 
chased  into  a  country  none  of  them  knew.  At 
last  they  got  over  east  as  far  as  the  Soda 
Springs  on  the  Bear  river,  where  they  were  on 
well-known  ground.  By  this  time,  however, 
their  horses  had  given  out,  and  their  food  was 
exhausted.  They  killed  their  horses,  made 


130  The  Story  of 

snowshoes  with  the  hides,  and  sought  to  reach 
Fort  Hall.  The  party  was  now  reduced  to  one 
of  those  awful  starving  marches  of  the  wilder- 
ness which  are  now  and  then  chronicled  in  West- 
ern life.  This  meant  that  the  weak  must  perish 
where  they  fell. 

The  strength  of  Helm  and  one  of  the  others, 
Burton,  enabled  them  to  push  on  ahead,  leaving 
their  companions  behind  in  the  mountains. 
Almost  within  reach  of  Fort  Hall,  Burton  gave 
out  and  was  left  behind  in  an  abandoned  cabin. 
Helm  pushed  on  into  the  old  stockade,  but 
found  it  also  abandoned  for  the  winter  season, 
and  he  could  get  no  food  there.  He  then  went 
back  to  where  he  had  left  Burton,  and,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  report,  he  was  trying  to  get  wood 
for  a  fire  when  he  heard  a  pistol-shot  and  re- 
turned to  find  that  Burton  had  killed  himself. 
He  stayed  on  at  this  spot,  and,  like  a  hyena, 
preyed  upon  the  dead  body  of  his  companion. 
He  ate  one  leg  of  the  body,  and  then,  wrapping 
up  the  other  in  a  piece  of  old  shirt,  threw  it 
across  his  shoulder  and  started  on  further  east. 
He  had,  before  this  on  the  march,  declared  to 
the  party  that  he  had  practiced  cannibalism  at 
an  earlier  time,  and  proposed  to  do  so  again  if 
it  became  necessary  on  this  trip  across  the  moun- 


The  Outlaw  131 

tains.  His  calm  threat  was  now  verified.  Helm 
was  found  at  last  at  an  Indian  camp  by  John 
W.  Powell,  who  learned  that  he  was  as  hard 
a  character  as  he  had  ever  run  across.  None 
the  less,  he  took  care  of  Helm,  gave  him  food 
and  clothes,  and  took  him  to  the  settlements 
around  Salt  Lake.  Powell  found  that  Helm 
had  a  bag  containing  over  fourteen  hundred 
dollars  in  coin,  which  he  had  carried  across  the 
divide  with  him  through  all  his  hardships.  He 
would  take  no  pay  from  Helm,  and  the  latter 
never  even  thanked  him  for  his  kindness,  but 
left  him  as  soon  as  he  reached  the  Mormon 
settlements. 

Here  the  abandoned  ruffian  boasted  of  what 
he  had  done,  and  settled  down  for  a  brief  time 
to  the  customary  enjoyments  of  the  rough  when 
in  town.  He  spent  his  money,  hired  out  as  a 
Danite,  killed  a  couple  of  men  whom  the  Mor- 
mons wanted  removed,  and  soon  got  so  bad 
that  he  had  to  leave.  Once  more  he  headed 
west  to  California,  and  once  more  he  started 
back  north  from  San  Francisco,  for  reasons 
satisfactory  to  himself.  While  in  California, 
as  was  later  learned,  he  undertook  to  rob  and 
kill  a  man  at  an  outlying  ranch,  who  had  taken 
him  in  and  befriended  him  when  he  was  in  need 


132  The  Story  of 

and  in  flight  from  vengeance.  He  showed  no 
understanding  of  the  feeling  of  gratitude,  no 
matter  what  was  done  for  him  or  how  great  was 
his  own  extremity. 

In  Oregon  Helm  went  back  to  robbery  as 
his  customary  means  of  support,  and  he  killed 
several  men  at  this  time  of  his  life,  how  many 
will  never  be  known.  In  1862,  as  the  moun- 
tain placers  were  now  beginning  to  draw  the 
crowds  of  mining  men,  it  was  natural  that 
Boone  Helm  should  show  up  at  Florence. 
Here  he  killed  a  man  in  cold  blood,  in  treach- 
ery, while  his  enemy  was  not  armed,  and  after 
their  quarrel  had  been  compromised.  This  vic- 
tim was  Dutch  Fred,  a  man  of  reputation  as  a 
fighter,  but  he  had  never  offended  Helm,  who 
killed  him  at  the  instigation  of  an  enemy  of  his 
victim,  and  possibly  for  hire.  He  shot  Fred 
while  the  latter  stood  looking  him  in  the  face, 
unarmed,  and,  missing  him  with  the  first  shot, 
took  deliberate  aim  with  the  second  and  mur- 
dered his  man  in  cold  blood. 

This  was  pretty  bad  even  for  Florence,  and 
he  had  to  leave.  That  fall  he  turned  up  far 
to  the  north,  on  the  Fraser  river,  in  British 
Columbia.  Here  he  was  once  more  reduced 
to  danger  on  a  starving  foot  march  in  the  wil- 


The  Outlaw  133 

derness,  and  here,  once  more,  he  was  guilty  of 
eating  the  body  of  his  companion,  whom  he  is 
supposed  to  have  slain.  He  was  sent  back  by 
the  British  authorities,  and  for  a  time  was  held 
at  Portland,  Oregon,  for  safe  keeping.  Later 
he  was  tried  at  Florence  for  killing  Dutch  Fred, 
but  the  witnesses  had  disappeared,  and  people 
had  long  ago  lost  interest  in  the  crime  by  rea- 
son of  others  more  recent.  Helm  escaped  jus- 
tice and  was  supposed  to  have  gone  to  Texas; 
but  he  soon  appeared  in  the  several  settlements 
which  have  been  mentioned  in  the  foregoing 
pages,  and  moved  from  one  to  the  other.  He 
killed  many  more  men,  how  many  in  all  was 
never  known. 

The  courage  and  hardihood  of  Boone  Helm 
were  in  evidence  to  the  close  of  his  life.  Three 
men  of  the  Vigilantes  did  the  dangerous  work 
of  arresting  him,  and  took  him  by  closing  in 
on  him  as  he  stood  in  the  street  talking.  "If 
I'd  had  a  chance,"  said  he,  "or  if  I  had  guessed 
what  you  all  were  up  to,  you'd  never  have 
taken  me."  He  claimed  not  to  know  what  was 
wanted  of  him  when  brought  before  the  judges 
of  the  Vigilante  court,  and  solemnly  declared 
that  he  had  never  killed  a  man  in  all  his  life! 
They  made  him  kiss  the  Bible  and  swear  to  this 


134  The  Story  of 

over  again  just  to  see  to  what  lengths  his  per- 
jured and  depraved  soul  would  go.  He  swore 
on  the  Bible  with  perfect  calmness!  His  cap- 
tors were  not  moved  by  this,  and  indeed  Helm 
was  little  expectant  that  they  would  be.  He 
called  aside  one  of  them  whom  he  knew,  de- 
clined a  clergyman,  and  confessed  to  a  murder 
or  so  in  Missouri  and  in  California,  admitted 
that  he  had  been  imprisoned  once  or  twice,  but 
denied  that  he  had  been  a  road  agent.  He  ac- 
cused some  of  his  warmest  friends  of  the  latter 
crime.  Jack  Gallegher,  also  under  arrest,  heard 
him  thus  incriminate  himself  and  others  of  the 
gang  and  called  him  all  the  names  in  the  calen- 
dar, telling  him  he  ought  to  die. 

"I  have  looked  at  death  in  all  forms,"  said 
Helm,  coolly,  uand  I  am  not  afraid  to  die." 
He  then  asked  for  a  glass  of  whiskey,  as  did  a 
good  many  of  these  murderers  when  they  were 
brought  to  the  gallows.  From  that  time  on  he 
was  cool  and  unconcerned,  and  showed  a  finish 
worthy  of  one  ambitious  to  be  thought  wholly 
bad. 

There  were  six  thousand  men  assembled  in 
Virginia  City  to  see  the  executions  of  these 
criminals,  who  were  fast  being  rounded  up  and 
hung  by  the  citizens.  The  place  of  execution 


The  Outlaw  135 

was  in  a  half-finished  log  building.  The  ropes 
were  passed  over  the  ridge-pole,  and,  as  the 
front  of  the  building  was  open,  a  full  view  was 
offered  of  the  murderers  as  they  stood  on  the 
boxes  arranged  for  the  drops.  Boone  Helm 
looked  around  at  his  friends  placed  for  death, 
and  told  Jack  Gallegher  to  "stop  making  such 
a  fuss."  "There's  no  use  being  afraid  to  die," 
said  he ;  and  indeed  there  probably  never  lived  a 
man  more  actually  devoid  of  all  sense  of  fear. 
He  valued  neither  the  life  of  others  nor  his  own. 
He  saw  that  the  end  had  come,  and  was  care- 
less about  the  rest.  He  had  a  sore  finger, 
which  was  tied  up,  and  this  seemed  to  trouble 
him  more  than  anything  else.  There  was  some 
delay  about  the  confessions  and  the  last  offices 
of  those  who  prayed  for  the  condemned,  and 
this  seemed  to  irritate  Boone  Helm. 

"For  God's  sake,"  said  he,  "if  you're  going 
to  hang  me,  I  want  you  to  do  it  and  get  through 
with  it.  If  not,  I  want  you  to  tie  up  my  finger 
for  me." 

"Give  me  that  overcoat  of  yours,  Jack,"  he 
said  to  Gallegher,  as  the  latter  was  stripped  for 
the  noose. 

"You  won't  need  it  now,"  replied  Gallegher, 
who  was  dying  blasphemous.  About  then, 


136  The  Story  of 

George  Lane,  one  of  the  line  of  men  about  to 
be  hung,  jumped  off  his  box  on  his  own  ac- 
count. "There's  one  gone  to  hell,"  remarked 
Boone  Helm,  philosophically.  Gallegher  was 
hanged  next,  and  as  he  struggled  his  former 
friend  watched  him  calmly.  "Kick  away,  old 
fellow,"  said  Boone  Helm.  Then,  as  though 
suddenly  resolved  to  end  it,  he  commented, 
"My  turn  next.  I'll  be  in  hell  with  you  in  a 
minute !" 

Boone  Helm  was  a  Confederate  and  a  bitter 
one,  and  this  seems  to  have  remained  with  him 
to  the  last.  "Every  man  for  his  principles!" 
he  shouted.  "Hurrah  for  Jeff  Davis !  Let  her 
rip!"  He  sprang  off  the  box;  and  so  he  fin- 
ished, utterly  hard  and  reckless  to  the  last. 


The  Outlaw  137 


Chapter  IX 

Death  Scenes  of  Desperadoes — How  Bad  Men 
Died — The  Last  Moments  of  Desperadoes 
Who  Finished  on  the  Scaffold — Utterances  of 
Terror,  of  Defiance,  and  of  Cowardice.  :  : 

THERE  is  always  a  grim  sort  of  curios- 
ity regarding  the  way  in  which  noto- 
riously desperate  men  meet  their  end; 
and  perhaps  this  is  as  natural  as  is  the  curiosity 
regarding  the  manner  in  which  they  lived- 
"Did  he  die  game?"  is  one  of  the  questions 
asked  by  bad  men  among  themselves.  "Did 
he  die  with  his  boots  on  ?"  is  another.  The  last 
was  the  test  of  actual  or,  as  it  were,  of  profes- 
sional badness.  One  who  admitted  himself  bad 
was  willing  to  die  with  his  boots  on.  Honest 
men  were  not,  and  more  than  one  early  West- 
ern man  fatally  shot  had  his  friends  take  off 
his  boots  before  he  died,  so  that  he  might  not 
go  with  the  stain  of  desperadoism  attached  to 
his  name. 


138  The  Story  of 

Some  bad  men  died  unrepentant  and  defiant. 
Others  broke  down  and  wept  and  begged.  A 
great  oblivion  enshrouds  most  of  these  utter- 
ances, for  few  Vigilante  movements  ever  reached 
importance  enough  to  permit  those  who  par- 
ticipated to  make  publicly  known  their  own 
participation  in  them.  Indeed,  no  man  ever 
concerned  in  a  law  and  order  execution  ever 
liked  to  talk  about  it.  Tradition,  however,  has 
preserved  the  exact  utterances  of  many  bad 
men.  Report  is  preserved,  in  a  general  way, 
of  many  of  the  rustlers  hung  by  the  cattle  men 
in  the  "regulator"  movement  in  Montana, 
Wyoming,  and  Nebraska  in  the  late  'yo's. 
"Give  me  a  chew  of  tobacco,  folks,"  said  one. 
"Meet  you  in  hell,  fellows,"  remarked  others 
of  these  rustlers  when  the  last  moment  arrived. 
"So-long,  boys,"  was  a  not  infrequent  remark 
as  the  noose  tightened.  Many  of  these  men 
were  brave,  and  some  of  them  were  hung  for 
what  they  considered  no  crime. 

Henry  Plummer,  whose  fate  has  been  de- 
scribed in  a  previous  chapter,  was  one  of  those 
who  died  in  a  sense  of  guilt  and  terror.  His 
was  a  nature  of  some  sensitiveness,  not  callous 
like  that  of  Boone  Helm.  Plummer  begged 
for  life  on  any  terms,  asked  the  Vigilantes  to 


I?, 


The  Outlaw  139 

cut  off  his  ears  and  hands  and  tongue,  anything 
to  mark  him  and  leave  him  helpless,  but  to  leave 
him  alive.  He  protested  that  he  was  too 
wicked  to  die,  fell  on  his  knees,  cried  aloud, 
promised,  besought.  On  the  whole,  his  end 
hardly  left  him  enshrouded  with  much  glamor 
of  courage;  although  the  latter  term  is  relative 
in  the  bad  man,  who  might  be  brave  at  one 
time  and  cowardly  at  another,  as  was  often 
proved. 

Ned  Ray  and  Buck  Stinson  died  full  of  pro- 
fanity and  curses,  heaping  upon  their  execu- 
tioners all  manner  of  abuse.  They  seemed  to  be 
animated  by  no  understanding  of  a  life  here- 
after, and  were  concerned  only  in  their  animal 
instinct  to  hold  on  to  this  one  as  long  as  they 
might.  Yet  Stinson,  of  a  good  Indiana  family, 
was  a  bright  and  studious  and  well-read  boy, 
of  whom  many  good  things  had  been  predicted, 

Dutch  John,  when  faced  with  death,  acted 
much  as  his  chief,  Henry  Plummer,  had  done. 
He  begged  and  pleaded,  and  asked  for  mutila- 
tion, disfigurement,  anything,  if  only  he  might 
still  live.  But,  like  Plummer,  at  the  very  last 
moment  he  pulled  together  and  died  calmly. 
"How  long  will  it  take  me  to  die?"  he  asked. 
"I  have  never  seen  anyone  hanged."  They  told 


140  The  Story  of 

him  it  would  be  very  short  and  that  he  would 
not  suffer  much,  and  this  seemed  to  please  him. 
Nearly  all  these  desperadoes  seemed  to  dread 
death  by  hanging.  The  Territory  of  Utah 
allowed  a  felon  convicted  under  death  penalty 
to  choose  the  manner  of  his  death,  whether  by 
hanging,  beheading,  or  shooting;  but  no  record 
remains  of  any  prisoner  who  did  not  choose 
death  by  shooting.  A  curiosity  as  to  the  sensa- 
tion of  hanging  was  evinced  in  the  words  of 
several  who  were  hung  by  Vigilantes. 

In  the  largest  hanging  made  in  this  Mon- 
tana work,  there  were  five  men  executed  one 
after  the  other:  Clubfoot  George,  Hayes 
Lyons,  Jack  Gallegher,  Boone  Helm,  and 
Frank  Parish,  all  known  to  be  members  of  the 
Plummer  gang.  George  and  Parish  at  first 
declared  that  they  were  innocent — the  first  word 
of  most  of  these  men  when  they  were  appre- 
hended. Parish  died  silent.  George  had  spent 
some  hours  with  a  clergyman,  and  was  appar- 
ently repentant.  Just  as  he  reached  the  box, 
he  saw  a  friend  peering  through  a  crack  in  the 
wall.  "Good-by,  old  fellow,"  he  called  out, 
and  sprang  to  his  own  death  without  waiting 
for  the  box  to  be  pulled  from  under  his  feet. 

Hayes  Lyons  asked  to  see  his  mistress  to  say 


The  Outlaw  141 

good-by  to  her  before  he  died,  but  was  refused. 
He  kept  on  pleading  for  his  life  to  the  very  last 
instant,  after  he  had  told  the  men  to  take  his 
body  to  his  mistress  for  burial.  This  woman 
was  really  the  cause  of  Lyons'  undoing.  He 
had  been  warned,  and  would  have  left  the  coun- 
try but  for  her.  A  woman  was  very  often  the 
cause  of  a  desperado's  apprehension. 

Jack  Gallegher  in  his  last  moments  was,  if 
possible,  more  repulsive  even  than  Boone  Helm. 
The  latter  was  brave,  but  Gallegher  was  a  cow- 
ard, and  spent  his  time  in  cursing  his  captors 
and  pitying  himself.  He  tried  to  be  merry. 
"How  do  I  look  with  a  halter  around  my 
neck?"  he  asked  facetiously  of  a  bystander. 
He  asked  often  for  whiskey  and  this  was  given 
him.  A  moment  later  he  said,  "I  want  one 
more  drink  of  whiskey  before  I  die."  This 
was  when  the  noose  was  tight  around  his  neck, 
and  the  men  were  disgusted  with  him  for  the 
remark.  One  remarked,  "Give  him  the  whis- 
key"; so  the  rope,  which  was  passed  over  the 
beam  above  him  and  fastened  to  a  side  log  of 
the  building,  was  loosened  to  oblige  him. 
"Slack  off  the  rope,  can't  you,"  cried  Gallegher, 
"and  let  a  man  have  a  parting  drink."  He 
bent  his  head  down  against  the  rope  and  drank 


142  The  Story  of 

a  tumblerful  of  whiskey  at  a  gulp.  Then  he 
called  down  curses  on  the  men  who  were  about 
him,  and  kept  it  up  until  they  cut  him  short  by 
jerking  away  the  box  from  under  his  feet. 

A  peculiar  instance  of  unconscious,  but  grim, 
humor  was  afforded  at  Gallegher's  execution. 
Just  as  he  was  led  to  the  box  and  ordered  to 
climb  up,  he  drew  a  pocketknife  and  declared 
he  would  kill  himself  and  not  be  hanged  in  pub- 
lic. A  Vigilante  covered  him  with  a  six-shooter. 
"Drop  that,  Jack,"  he  exclaimed,  "or  I'll  blow 
your  head  off."  So  Gallegher,  having  the 
choice  of  death  between  shooting,  hanging  or 
beheading,  chose  hanging  after  all!  He  was 
a  coward. 

Cy  Skinner,  when  on  the  way  to  the  scaffold, 
broke  and  ran,  calling  on  his  captors  to  shoot. 
They  declined,  and  hanged  him.  Alex  Carter, 
who  was  on  the  fatal  line  with  Skinner  in  that 
lot,  was  disgusted  with  him  for  running.  He 
asked  for  a  smoke  while  the  men  were  waiting, 
and  died  with  a  lie  on  his  lips — "I  am  inno- 
cent." That  is  not  an  infrequent  declaration 
of  criminals  at  the  last.  The  lie  is  only  a  blind 
clinging  to  the  last  possible  means  of  escape, 
and  is  the  same  as  the  instinct  for  self-preserva- 
tion, a  crime  swallowed  up  in  guilt. 


The  Outlaw  143 

Johnny  Cooper  wanted  a  "good  smoke"  be- 
fore he  died,  and  was  given  it.  Bob  Zachary 
died  without  fear,  and  praying  forgiveness  on 
his  executioners.  Steve  Marshland  asked  to 
be  pardoned  because  of  his  youth.  "You  should 
have  thought  of  that  before,"  was  the  grim 
reply.  He  was  adjudged  old  enough  to  die,  as 
he  had  been  old  enough  to  kill. 

George  Shears  was  one  of  the  gamest  of  the 
lot.  He  seemed  indifferent  about  it  all  after 
his  capture,  and,  when  he  was  told  that  he  was 
to  be  hanged,  he  remarked  that  he  ought  to  be 
glad  it  was  no  worse.  He  was  executed  in  the 
barn  at  a  ranch  where  he  was  caught,  and,  con- 
veniences being  few,  a  ladder  was  used  instead  of 
a  box  or  other  drop.  He  was  told  to  ascend  the 
latter,  and  did  so  without  the  least  hesitation 
or  evidence  of  concern.  "Gentlemen,"  said  he, 
"I  am  not  used  to  this  business,  never  having 
been  hung  before.  Shall  I  jump  off  or  slide 
off?"  They  told  him  to  "jump,  of  course,"  and 
he  took  this  advice.  "All  right.  Good-by !"  he 
said,  and  sprang  off  with  unconcern. 

Whiskey  Bill  was  not  given  much  chance  for 
last  words.  He  was  hung  from  horseback,  the 
noose  being  dropped  down  from  a  tree  to  his 
neck  as  he  sat  on  a  horse  behind  one  of  the 


144  The  Story  of 

Vigilantes.  "Good-by,  Bill,"  was  the  remark 
of  the  latter,  as  he  spurred  his  horse  and  left 
Bill  hanging. 

One  of  the  most  singular  phenomena  of  these 
executions  was  that  of  Bill  Hunter,  who,  while 
hanging  by  the  neck,  went  through  all  the 
motions  of  drawing  and  firing  his  six-shooter 
six  times.  Whether  the  action  was  conscious 
or  unconscious  it  is  impossible  to  tell. 

Bill  Bunton  resisted  arrest  and  was  pugna- 
cious, of  course  declaring  his  innocence.  At  the 
last  he  showed  great  gameness.  He  was  par- 
ticular about  the  manner  in  which  the  knot  of 
the  rope  was  adjusted  to  his  neck,  seeming,  as 
did  many  of  these  men,  to  dread  any  suffering 
while  hanging.  He  asked  if  he  might  jump  off 
the  platform  himself,  and  was  told  he  might  if 
he  liked.  "I  care  no  more  for  hanging,"  he  ex- 
plained, "than  I  do  for  taking  a  drink  of  water, 
but  I'd  like  to  have  my  neck  broken.  I'd  like 
to  have  a  mountain  three  hundred  feet  high 
to  jump  off  from.  Now,  I'll  give  you  the  time : 
One — two— three.  Here  goes!" 


The  Outlaw  145 


Chapter  X 

Joseph  A.  Slade — A  Man  with  a  Newspaper 
Reputation — Bad,  but  Not  as  Bad  as  Painted 
— Hero  of  the  Overland  Express  Route — A 
Product  of  Courage  Plus  Whiskey,  and  the 
End  of  the  Product.  :::::: 

ONE  of  the  best-known  desperadoes  the 
West  ever  produced  was  Joseph  A. 
Slade,  agent  of  the  Overland  stage 
line  on  the  central  or  mountain  division,  about 
1860,  and  hence  in  charge  of  large  responsi- 
bilities in  a  strip  of  country  more  than  six  hun- 
dred miles  in  extent,  which  possessed  all  the 
ingredients  for  trouble  in  plenty.  Slade  lived, 
in  the  heyday  of  his  career,  just  about  the  time 
when  men  from  the  East  were  beginning  to 
write  about  the  newly  discovered  life  of  the 
West.  Bret  Harte  had  left  his  indelible  stamp 
upon  the  literature  of  the  land,  and  Mark 
Twain  was  soon  to  spread  widely  his  impres- 
sions of  life  as  seen  in  "Roughing  It";  while 


146  The  Story  of 

countless  newspaper  men  and  book  writers 
were  edging  out  and  getting  hearsay  stories  of 
things  known  at  first  hand  by  a  very  few  careful 
and  conscientious  writers. 

The  hearsay  man  engaged  in  discovering  the 
West  always  clung  to  the  regular  lines  of  travel ; 
and  almost  every  one  who  passed  across  the 
mountains  on  the  Overland  stage  line  would 
hear  stories  about  the  desperate  character  of 
Slade.  These  stories  grew  by  newspaper  multi- 
plication, until  at  length  the  man  was  owner  of 
the  reputation  of  a  fiend,  a  ghoul,  and  a  mur- 
derer. There  was  a  wide  difference  between 
this  and  the  truth.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
were  many  worse  desperadoes  on  the  border. 

Slade  was  born  at  Carlisle,  Illinois,  and  served 
in  the  Mexican  War  in  1848.  He  appears  to 
have  gone  into  the  Overland  service  in  1859. 
At  once  he  plunged  into  the  business  of  the 
stage  line,  and  soon  became  a  terror  to  the 
thieves  and  outlaws,  several  of  whom  he  was 
the  means  of  having  shot  or  hung,  although  he 
himself  was  nothing  of  a  man-hunter  at  the 
time;  and  indeed,  in  all  his  life  he  killed  but 
one  man — a  case  of  a  reputation  beyond  desert, 
and  an  instance  of  a  reputation  fostered  by  ad- 
miring but  ignorant  writers. 


The   Outlaw  147 

Slade  was  reported  to  have  tied  one  of  his 
enemies,  Jules  Reni,  more  commonly  called 
Jules,  to  the  stake,  and  to  have  tortured  him 
for  a  day,  shooting  him  to  pieces  bit  by  bit,  and 
cutting  off  his  ears,  one  of  which  he  always 
afterward  wore  in  his  pocket  as  a  souvenir. 
There  was  little  foundation  for  this  reputation 
beyond  the  fact  that  he  did  kill  Jules,  and  did 
it  after  Jules  had  been  captured  and  disarmed 
by  other  men.  But  he  had  been  threatened 
time  and  again  by  Jules,  and  was  once  shot  and 
left  for  dead  by  the  latter,  who  emptied  a  pistol 
and  a  shotgun  at  Slade,  and  left  him  lying  with 
thirteen  bullets  and  buckshot  in  his  body.  Jules 
thought  he  did  not  need  to  shoot  Slade  any 
more  after  that,  and  gave  directions  for  his 
burial  as  soon  as  he  should  have  died.  At  that 
Slade  rose  on  his  elbow  and  promised  Jules  he 
would  live  and  would  wear  one  of  his,  Jules', 
ears  on  his  watch  chain;  a  threat  which  no 
doubt  gave  rise  to  a  certain  part  of  his  ghastly 
reputation.  Jules  was  hung  for  a  while  by  the 
stage  people,  but  was  let  down  and  released  on 
promise  of  leaving  the  country  never  to  return. 
He  did  not  keep  his  promise,  and  it  had  been 
better  for  him  if  he  had. 

Jules  Reni  was  a  big  Frenchman,  one  of  that 


148  The  Story  of 

sort  of  early  ranchers  who  were  owners  of 
small  ranches  and  a  limited  number  of  cattle 
and  horses — just  enough  to  act  as  a  shield  for 
thefts  of  live  stock,  and  to  offer  encouragement 
to  such  thefts.  Before  long  Jules  was  back  at 
his  old  stamping-grounds,  where  he  was  looked 
on  as  something  of  a  bully;  and  at  once  he  re- 
newed his  threats  against  Slade. 

Slade  went  to  the  officers  of  the  military  post 
at  Laramie,  the  only  kind  of  authority  then  in 
the  land,  which  had  no  sort  of  courts  or  officers, 
and  asked  them  what  he  should  do.  They  told 
him  to  have  Jules  captured  and  then  to  kill  him, 
else  Jules  would  do  the  same  for  him.  Slade 
sent  four  men  out  to  the  ranch  where  Jules  was 
stopping,  about  twelve  miles  from  Laramie, 
while  he  followed  in  the  stage-coach.  These 
men  captured  Jules  at  a  ranch  a  little  farther 
down  the  line,  and  left  him  prisoner  at  the  stage 
station.  Here  Slade  found  him  in  the  corral,  a 
prisoner,  unarmed  and  at  his  mercy,  and  with- 
out hesitation  he  shot  him,  the  ball  striking  him 
in  the  mouth.  His  victim  fell  and  feigned 
death,  but  Slade — who  was  always  described  as 
a  good  pistol  shot — saw  that  he  was  not  killed, 
and  told  him  he  should  have  time  to  make  his 
will  if  he  desired.  There  is  color  in  the  charge 


The   Outlaw  149 

of  deliberate  cruelty,  but  perhaps  rude  warrant 
for  the  cruelty,  under  the  circumstances  of 
treachery  in  which  Jules  had  pursued  Slade.  At 
least,  some  time  elapsed  while  a  man  was  run- 
ning back  and  forward  from  the  house  to  the 
corral  with  pen  and  ink  and  paper.  Jules  never 
signed  his  will.  When  the  last  penful  of  ink 
came  out  to  the  corral,  Jules  was  dead,  shot 
through  the  head  by  Slade.  This  looks  like 
cruelty  of  an  unnecessary  sort,  and  like  taunt- 
ing a  helpless  victim;  but  here  the  warrant  for 
all  the  Slade  sort  of  stories  seems  to  end,  and 
there  is  no  evidence  of  his  mutilating  his  vic- 
tim, as  was  often  described. 

Slade  went  back  to  the  officers  of  Fort  Lara- 
mie,  and  they  said  he  had  done  right  and  did 
not  detain  him.  Nor  did  any  of  Jules'  friends 
ever  molest  him.  He  returned  to  his  work  on 
the  Overland.  After  this  he  grew  more  turbu- 
lent, and  was  guilty  of  high-handed  outrages 
and  of  a  general  disposition  to  run  things 
wherever  he  went.  The  officers  at  Fort  Hal- 
leek  arrested  him  and  refused  to  turn  him  over 
to  the  stage  line  unless  the  latter  agreed  to 
discharge  him.  This  was  done,  and  now  Slade, 
out  of  work,  began  to  be  bad  at  heart.  He 
took  to  drink  and  drifting,  and  so  at  last  turned 


I  50  The  Story  of 

up  at  the  Beaverhead  diggings  in  1863,  not 
much  different  from  many  others  of  the  bad 
folk  to  be  found  there. 

Quiet  enough  when  sober,  Slade  was  a 
maniac  in  drink,  and  this  latter  became  his 
habitual  condition.  Now  and  again  he  sobered 
up,  and  he  always  was  a  business  man  and  ani- 
mated by  an  ambition  to  get  on  in  the  world. 
He  worked  here  and  there  in  different  capaci- 
ties, and  at  last  settled  on  a  ranch  a  dozen  miles 
or  so  from  Virginia  City,  where  he  lived  with 
his  wife,  a  robust,  fine-looking  woman  of  great 
courage  and  very  considerable  beauty,  of  whom 
he  was  passionately  fond;  although  she  lived 
almost  alone  in  the  remote  cabin  in  the  moun- 
tains, while  Slade  pursued  his  avocations,  such  as 
they  were,  in  the  settlements  along  Alder  Gulch. 

Slade  now  began  to  grow  ugly  and  hard,  and 
to  exult  in  terrorizing  the  hard  men  of  those 
hard  towns.  He  would  strike  a  man  in  the  face 
while  drinking  with  him,  would  rob  his  friends 
while  playing  cards,  would  ride  into  the  saloons 
and  break  up  the  furniture,  and  destroy  prop- 
erty with  seeming  exultation  at  his  own  malic- 
iousness. He  was  often  arrested,  warned,  and 
fined;  and  sometimes  he  defied  such  officers  as 
went  after  him  and  refused  to  be  arrested.  His 


The   Outlaw  151 

whole  conduct  made  him  a  menace  to  the  peace 
of  this  little  community,  which  was  now  en- 
deavoring to  become  more  decent,  and  he  fell 
under  the  fatal  scrutiny  of  the  Vigilantes,  who 
concluded  that  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to  hang 
Slade.  He  had  never  killed  anyone  as  yet, 
although  he  had  abused  many;  but  it  was  sure 
that  he  would  kill  some  one  if  allowed  to  run 
on;  and,  moreover,  it  was  humiliating  to  have 
one  man  trying  to  run  the  town  and  doing  as 
he  pleased.  Slade  was  to  learn  what  society 
means,  and  what  the  social  compact  means,  as 
did  many  of  these  wild  men  who  had  been  run- 
ning as  savages  outside  of  and  independent  of 
the  law.  Slade  got  wind  of  the  deliberations  of 
the  Committee,  as  well  he  might  when  six  hun- 
dred men  came  down  from  Nevada  Camp  to 
Virginia  City  to  help  in  the  court  of  the  miners, 
before  which  Slade  was  now  to  come.  It  was 
the  Nevada  Vigilantes  who  were  most  strongly 
of  the  belief  that  death  and  not  banishment  was 
the  proper  punishment  for  Slade.  The  leader 
of  the  marching  men  calmly  told  Slade  that  the 
Committee  had  decided  to  hang  him;  and,  once 
the  news  was  sure,  Slade  broke  out  into  lamen- 
tations. 

This  was  often  the  case  with  men  who  had 


152  The  Story  of 

been  bullies  and  terrors.  They  weakened  when 
in  the  hands  of  a  stronger  power.  Slade  crept 
about  on  his  hands  and  knees,  begging  like  a 
baby.  uMy  God!  My  God!"  he  cried. 
"Must  I  die?  Oh,  my  poor  wife,  my  poor 
wife!  My  God,  men,  you  can't  mean  that 
I'm  to  die!" 

They  did  mean  it,  and  neither  his  importuni- 
ties nor  those  of  his  friends  had  avail.  His 
life  had  been  too  rough  and  violent  and  was 
too  full  of  menace  to  others.  He  had  had  his 
fair  frontier  chance  and  had  misused  it.  Some 
wept  at  his  prayers,  but  none  relented.  In 
broad  daylight,  the  procession  moved  down  the 
street,  and  soon  Slade  was  swinging  from  the 
beam  of  a  corral  gate,  one  more  example  of 
the  truth  that  when  man  belongs  to  society  he 
owes  duty  to  society  and  else  must  suffer  at  its 
hands.  This  was  the  law. 

Slade's  wife  was  sent  for  and  reached  town 
soon  after  Slade's  body  was  cut  down  and  laid 
out.  She  loaded  the  Vigilantes  with  impreca- 
tions, and  showed  the  most  heartbroken  grief. 
The  two  had  been  very  deeply  attached.  She 
was  especially  regretful  that  Slade  had  been 
hanged  and  not  shot.  He  was  worth  a  better 
death  than  that,  she  protested. 


The  Outlaw  153 

Slade's  body  was  preserved  in  alcohol  and 
kept  out  at  the  lone  ranch  cabin  all  that  winter. 
In  the  spring  it  was  sent  down  to  Salt  Lake  City 
and  buried  there.  As  that  was  a  prominent 
point  on  the  overland  trail,  the  tourists  did  the 
rest.  The  saga  of  Slade  as  a  bad  man  was 
widely  disseminated. 


154  The  Story  of 


Chapter  XI 

The  Desperado  of  the  Plains — Lawlessness 
Founded  on  Loose  Methods — The  Rustlers  of 
the  Cow  Country — Excuses  for  Their  Acts — 
The  Approach  of  the  Commercial  West.  :  : 

ONE  pronounced  feature  of  early  West- 
ern life  will  have  been  remarked  in  the 
story  of  the  mountain  settlements  with 
which  we  have  been  concerned,  and  that  is  the 
transient  and  migratory  character  of  the  popu- 
lation. It  is  astonishing  what  distances  were 
traveled  by  the  bold  men  who  followed  the 
mining  stampedes  all  over  the  wilderness  of 
the  upper  Rockies,  in  spite  of  the  unspeakable 
hardships  of  a  region  where  travel  at  its  best 
was  rude,  and  travel  at  its  worst  well-nigh  an 
impossibility.  The  West  Was  first  peopled  by 
wanderers,  nomads,  even  in  its  mountain  re- 
gions, which  usually  attach  their  population  to 


The   Outlaw  155 

themselves  and  cut  off  the  disposition  to  roam. 
This  nomad  nature  of  the  adventurers  made 
law  almost  an  impossible  thing.  A  town  was 
organized  and  then  abandoned,  on  the  spur  of 
necessity  or  rumor.  Property  was  unstable, 
taxes  impossible,  and  any  corps  of  executive 
officers  difficult  of  maintenance.  Before  there 
can  be  law  there  must  be  an  attached  population. 

The  lawlessness  of  the  real  West  was  there- 
fore much  a  matter  of  conditions  after  all, 
rather  than  of  morals.  It  proved  above  all 
things  that  human  nature  is  very  much  akin, 
and  that  good  men  may  go  wrong  when  suffi- 
ciently tempted  by  great  wealth  left  unguarded. 
The  first  and  second  decades  after  the  close 
of  the  civil  war  found  the  great  placers  of  the 
Rockies  and  Sierras  exhausted,  and  quartz 
mines  taking  their  place.  The  same  period,  as 
has  been  shown,  marked  the  advent  of  the  great 
cattle  herds  from  the  South  upon  the  upper 
ranges  of  the  territories  beyond  the  Missouri 
river.  By  this  time,  the  plains  began  to  call 
to  the  adventurers  as  the  mines  recently  had 
called. 

Here,  then,  was  wealth,  loose,  unattached, 
apparently  almost  unowned,  nomad  wealth, 
and  waiting  for  a  nomad  population  to  share 


156  The  Story  of 

it  in  one  way  or  another.  Once  more,  the  home 
was  lacking,  the  permanent  abode;  wherefore, 
once  more  the  law  was  also  lacking,  and  man 
ruled  himself  after  the  ancient  savage  ways. 
By  this  time  frontiersmen  were  well  armed 
with  repeating  weapons,  which  now  used  fixed 
ammunition.  There  appeared  on  the  plains 
more  and  better  armed  men  than  were  ever 
known,  unorganized,  in  any  land  at  any  period 
of  the  earth's  history;  and  the  plains  took  up 
what  the  mountains  had  begun  in  wild  and 
desperate  deeds. 

The  only  property  on  the  arid  plains  at  that 
time  was  that  of  live  stock.  Agriculture  had 
not  come,  and  it  was  supposed  could  never 
come.  The  vast  herds  of  cattle  from  the  lower 
ranges,  Texas  and  Mexico,  pushed  north  to 
meet  the  railroads,  now  springing  westward 
across  the  plains;  but  a  large  proportion  of 
these  cattle  were  used  as  breeding  stock- to  fur- 
nish the  upper  cow  range  with  horned  popula- 
tion. Colorado,  Wyoming,  Montana,  western 
Nebraska,  the  Dakotas,  discovered  that  they 
could  raise  range  cattle  as  well  as  the  southern 
ranges,  and  fatten  them  far  better;  so  presently 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  cattle  were  turned 
loose,  without  a  fence  in  those  thousands  of 


The   Outlaw  157 

miles,  to  exist  as  best  they  might,  and  guarded 
as  best  might  be  by  a  class  of  men  as  nomadic 
as  their  herds.  These  cattle  were  cheap  at  that 
time,  and  they  made  a  general  source  of  food 
supply  much  appreciated  in  a  land  but  just  de- 
populated of  its  buffalo.  For  a  long  time  it  was 
but  a  venial  crime  to  kill  a  cow  and  eat  it  if 
one  were  hungry.  A  man's  horse  was  sacred, 
but  his  cow  was  not,  because  there  were  so  many 
cows,  and  they  were  shifting  and  changing 
about  so  much  at  best. 

The  ownership  of  these  herds  was  widely 
scattered  and  difficult  to  trace.  A  man  might 
live  in  Texas  and  have  herds  in  Montana,  and 
vice  versa.  His  property  right  was  known  only 
by  the  brand  upon  the  animal,  his  being  but  the 
tenure  of  a  sign. 

"The  respect  for  this  sign  was  the  whole 
creed  of  the  cattle  trade.  Without  a  fence, 
without  an  atom  of  actual  control,  the  cattle 
man  held  his  property  absolutely.  It  mingled 
with  the  property  of  others,  but  it  was  never 
confused  therewith.  It  wandered  a  hundred 
miles  from  him,  and  he  knew  not  where  it  was, 
but  it  was  surely  his  and  sure  to  find  him.  To 
touch  it  was  crime.  To  appropriate  it  meant 
punishment.  Common  necessity  made  common 


158  The  Story  of 

custom,  common  custom  made  common  law, 
and  common  law  made  statutory  law."* 

The  old  fierro  or  iron  mark  of  the  Spanish 
cattle  owner,  and  his  venta  or  sale-brand  to  an- 
other had  become  common  law  all  over  the 
Southwest  when  the  Anglo-Saxon  first  struck 
that  region.  The  Saxon  accepted  these  customs 
as  wise  and  rational,  and  soon  they  were  the 
American  law  all  over  the  American  plains. 

The  great  bands  of  cattle  ran  almost  free  in 
the  Southwest  for  many  years,  each  carrying 
the  brand  of  the  owner,  if  the  latter  had  ever 
seen  it  or  cared  to  brand  it.  Many  cattle 
roamed  free  without  any  brand  whatever,  and 
no  one  could  tell  who  owned  them.  When  the 
northern  ranges  opened,  this  question  of  un- 
branded  cattle  still  remained,  and  the  "maver- 
ick" industry  was  still  held  matter  of  sanc- 
tion, there  seeming  to  be  enough  for  all,  and 
the  day  being  one  of  glorious  freedom  and 
plenty,  the  baronial  day  of  the  great  and  once 
unexhausted  West. 

Now  the  venta,  or  brand  indicating  the  sale 
of  an  animal  to  another  owner,  began  to  com- 
plicate matters  to  a  certain  extent.  A  pur- 

*"The  Story  of  the  Cowboy,"  by  E.  Hough.      D.  Appleton  &  Co. 
New   York. 


The  Outlaw  159 

chaser  could  put  his  own  fierro  brand  on  a  cow, 
and  that  meant  that  he  now  owned  it.  But 
then  some  suspicious  soul  asked,  "How  shall 
we  know  whence  such  and  such  cows  came,  and 
how  tell  whether  or  not  this  man  did  not  steal 
them  outright  from  his  neighbor's  herd  and 
put  his  own  brand  on  them?"  Here  was  the 
origin  of  the  bill  of  sale,  and  also  of  the  coun- 
ter brand  or  'Vent  brand,"  as  it  is  known  upon 
the  upper  ranges.  The  owner  duplicated  his 
recorded  brand  upon  another  recorded  part  of 
the  animal,  and  this  meant  his  deed  of  con- 
veyance, when  taken  together  with  the  bill  of 
sale  over  his  commercial  signature.  Of  course, 
several  conveyances  would  leave  the  hide  much 
scarred  and  hard  to  read;  and,  as  there  were 
"road  brands"  also  used  to  protect  the  prop- 
erty while  in  transit  from  the  South  to  the 
North  or  from  the  range  to  the  market,  the 
reading  of  the  brands  and  the  determination 
of  ownership  of  the  animal  might  be,  and  very 
often  was,  a  nice  matter,  and  one  not  always 
settled  without  argument;  and  argument  in 
the  West  often  meant  bloodshed  in  those  days. 
Some  hard  men  started  up  in  trade  near  the 
old  cattle  trails,  and  made  a  business  of  dis- 
puting brands  with  the  trail  drivers.  Some- 


160  The  Story  of 

times  they  made  good  their  claims,  and  some- 
times they  did  not.  There  were  graves  almost 
in  line  from  Texas  to  Montana. 

It  is  now  perfectly  easy  to  see  what  a  wide 
and  fertile  field  was  here  offered  to  men  who 
did  not  want  to  observe  the  law.  Here  was 
property  to  be  had  without  work,  and  property 
whose  title  could  easily  be  called  into  question; 
whose  ownership  was  a  matter  of  testimony  and 
record,  to  be  sure,  but  testimony  which  could 
be  erased  or  altered  by  the  same  means  which 
once  constituted  it  a  record  and  sign.  The 
brand  was  made  with  an  iron,  and  it  could  be 
changed  with  an  iron.  A  large  and  profitable 
industry  arose  in  changing  these  brands.  The 
rustler,  brand-burner  or  brand-blotcher  now  be- 
came one  of  the  new  Western  characters,  and  a 
new  sort  of  bad-manism  had  its  birth. 

"It  is  very  easy  to  see  how  temptation  was 
offered  to  the  cow  thief  and  'brand  blotter/ 
Here  were  all  these  wild  cattle  running  loose 
over  the  country.  The  imprint  of  a  hot  iron 
on  a  hide  made  the  creature  the  property  of 
the  brander,  provided  no  one  else  had  branded 
it  before.  The  time  of  priority  was  matter  of 
proof.  With  the  handy  "running-iron"  or 
straight  rod,  which  was  always  attached  to  his 


The   Outlaw  1 6 1 

saddle  when  he  rode  out,  could  not  the  cow 
thief  erase  a  former  brand  and  put  over  it  one 
of  his  own  ?  Could  he  not,  for  instance,  change 
a  U  into  an  O,  or  a  V  into  a  diamond,  or  a 
half-circle  into  a  circle?  Could  he  not,  more- 
over, kill  and  skin  an  animal  and  sell  the  beef 
as  his  own?  Between  him  and  the  owner  was 
only  this  little  mark.  Between  him  and  chang- 
ing this  mark  was  nothing  but  his  moral  prin- 
ciples. The  range  was  very  wide.  Hardly  a 
figure  would  show  on  that  unwinking  horizon 
all  day  long.  And  what  was  a  heifer  here  and 
there  ?" 

Such  was  the  temptation  and  opportunity 
which  led  many  a  man  to  step  over  the  line 
between  right  and  wrong.  Their  excuse  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  line  was  newly  drawn  and  that 
it  was  often  vague  and  inexact.  It  was  easy, 
from  killing  or  rebranding  an  occasional  cow, 
to  see  the  profits  of  larger  operation.  The 
faithful  cowboys  who  cared  for  these  herds  and 
protected  them  even  with  their  lives  in  the 
interest  of  absent  owners  began  in  time  to  tire 
of  working  on  a  salary,  and  settled  down  into 
little  ranches  of  their  own,  starting  with  a  herd 
of  cattle  lawfully  purchased  and  branded.  An 
occasional  maverick  came  across  their  range 


162  The   Story  of 

and  they  branded  it.  A  brand  was  faint  and 
not  legible,  and  they  put  their  own  iron  over 
it.  They  learned  that  pyrography  with  a  hot 
poker  was  very  profitable.  The  rest  was  easy. 
The  first  step  was  the  one  that  counted;  but 
who  could  tell  where  that  first  step  was  taken? 

At  any  rate,  cattle  owners  began  to  take  no- 
tice of  their  cows  as  the  prices  went  up,  and 
they  had  laws  made  to  protect  property  rapidly 
enhancing  in  value.  Cow  owners  were  re- 
quired to  have  fixed  or  stencil-irons,  and  were 
forbidden  to  trace  a  pattern  with  a  straight 
iron  or  "running-iron."  Each  ranch  must  have 
its  own  iron  or  stencil.  Texas  as  early  as  the 
'6o's  and  'yo's  passed  laws  forbidding  the  use 
of  the  running-iron  altogether,  so  that  after 
that  it  was  not  safe  to  be  caught  riding  the 
range  with  a  straight  iron  under  the  saddle 
flap.  Any  man  so  discovered  had  to  do  some 
quick  explaining. 

The  next  step  after  this  was  the  organization 
of  the  cattle  associations  in  the  several  terri- 
tories and  states  which  made  the  home  of  the 
cattle  trade.  These  associations  banded  to- 
gether in  a  national  association.  Detectives 
were  placed  at  the  stockyards  in  Chicago  and 
Kansas  City,  charged  with  the  finding  of  cattle 


The  Outlaw  163 

stolen  on  the  range  and  shipped  with  or  with- 
out clean  brands.  In  short,  there  had  now 
grown  up  an  armed  and  legal  warfare  between 
the  cow  men  themselves — in  the  first  place  very 
large-handed  thieves — and  the  rustlers  and 
"little  fellows"  who  were  accused  of  being  too 
liberal  with  their  brand  blotching.  The  prose- 
cution of  these  men  was  undertaken  with  some- 
thing of  the  old  vigor  that  characterized  the 
pursuit  of  horse  thieves,  with  this  difference, 
that,  whereas  all  the  world  had  hated  a  horse 
thief  as  a  common  enemy,  very  much  of  the 
world  found  excuse  for  the  so-called  rustler, 
who  was  known  to  be  doing  only  what  his  ac- 
cusers had  done  before  him. 

There  may  be  a  certain  interest  attaching  to 
the  methods  of  the  range  riders  of  this  day, 
and  those  who  care  to  go  into  the  history  of 
the  cattle  trade  in  its  early  days  are  referred 
to  the  work  earlier  quoted,  where  the  matter 
is  more  fully  covered.*  Brief  reference  will 
suffice  here. 

The  rustler  might  brand  with  his  own 
straight  running-iron,  as  it  were,  writing  over 
again  the  brand  he  wished  to  change;  but 
this  was  clumsy  and  apt  to  be  detected,  for 

*  "  The  Story  of  the  Cowboy."      By  E.  Hough.      D.  Applcton  &  Co 


1 64  The  Story  of 

the  new  wound  would  slough  and  look  sus- 
picious. A  piece  of  red-hot  hay  wire  or  tele- 
graph wire  was  a  better  tool,  for  this  could  be 
twisted  into  the  shape  of  almost  any  registered 
brand,  and  it  would  so  cunningly  connect  the 
edges  of  both  that  the  whole  mark  would  seem 
to  be  one  scar  of  the  same  date.  The  fresh 
burn  fitted  in  with  the  older  one  so  that  it  was 
impossible  to  swear  that  it  was  not  a  part  of 
the  first  brand  mark.  Yet  another  way  of  soft- 
ening a  fresh  and  fraudulent  brand  was  to 
brand  through  a  wet  blanket  with  a  heavy  iron, 
which  thus  left  a  wound  deep  enough,  but  not 
apt  to  slough,  and  so  betray  a  brand  done 
long  after  the  round-up,  and  hence  subject  to 
scrutiny. 

As  to  the  ways  in  which  brands  were  altered 
in  their  lines,  these  were  many  and  most  in- 
genious. A  sample  page  will  be  sufficient  to 
show  the  possibilities  of  the  art  by  which  the 
rustler  set  over  to  his  own  herds  on  the  free 
range  the  cows  of  his  far-away  neighbor, 
whom,  perhaps,  he  did  not  love  as  himself. 
The  list  on  the  opposite  page  is  taken  from  "The 
Story  of  the  Cowboy." 

Such,  then,  was  the  burglar  of  the  range,  the 
rustler,  to  whom  most  of  the  mysterious  and 


HOW  THE  RUSTLER  WORKED 


'.   !O    IOI   1O1    1OL    flOB 
-:  X    O-O  OHO 

3    JU 


vx      A 
4       V       V 


-8- 

9      «!i      il     1£ 

s     jjj    989      10    H      8 

6    -T     HI      XL.  CH     (hB 

7    7O  70S      -    CO  CO- 

s    AU  A1F     13-   21    2  b 

H.  ^f     @ 


The  above  plate  illustrates  the  manner  in  which  cow-brands  were  changed.  The 
original  brand  appears  in  each  case  to  the  left,  and  the  various  alterations  follow. 
It  will  be  noted  that  with  every  change  there  is  something  added — the  rule  always 
adopted  by  the  swindler 


The   Outlaw  165 

untraceable  crimes  were  ascribed.  Such  also 
were  the  excuses  to  be  offered  for  some  of  the 
men  who  did  what  to  them  did  not  seem  wrong 
acts.  The  sudden  hostility  of  the  newly-come 
cow  men  embittered  and  inflamed  them,  and 
from  this  it  was  easy  and  natural  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  arms. 

The  bad  man  of  the  plains  dates  to  this  era, 
and  his  acts  may  be  attributed  to  these  causes. 
There  were  to  be  found  among  these  men  many 
refugees  and  outlaws,  as  well  as  many  better 
men  gone  wrong  through  point  of  view.  Fierce 
and  far  were  the  battles  between  the  rustlers 
and  the  cow  barons.  Commerce  had  its  way 
at  last.  The  lawless  man  had  to  go,  and  he 
had  to  go  even  before  the  law  had  come. 

The  Vigilantes  of  the  cattle  range,  organiz- 
ing first  in  Montana  and  working  southward, 
made  a  clean  sweep  in  their  work.  In  one  cam- 
paign they  killed  somewhere  between  sixty  and 
eighty  men  accused  of  cattle  rustling.  They 
hung  thirteen  men  on  one  railroad  bridge  one 
morning  in  northwestern  Nebraska.  The  state- 
ment is  believed  to  be  correct  that,  in  the  ten 
years  from  1876  to  1886,  they  executed  more 
men  without  process  of  law  than  have  been 
executed  under  the  law  in  all  the  United  States 


1 66  The  Story  of 

since  then.  These  lynchings  also  were  against 
the  law.  In  short,  it  may  perhaps  begin  to 
appear  to  those  who  study  into  the  history  of 
our  earlier  civilization  that  the  term  "law"  is 
a  very  wide  and  lax  and  relative  one,  and  one 
extremely  difficult  of  exact  application. 


The  Outlaw  167 


Chapter  XII 

Wild  Bill  Hickok—  The  Beau  Ideal  of  the 
Western  Bad  Man;  Chivabic,  Daring,  Gener- 
ous, and  Game — A  Type  of  the  Early  Western 
Frontier  Officer.  ::::::::: 

A  has  been  shown  in  preceding  chapters, 
the  Western  plains  were  passed  over 
and  left  unsettled  until  the  advent  of 
the  railroads,  which  began  to  cross  the  plains 
coincident  with  the  arrival  of  the  great  cattle 
herds  which  came  up  from  the  South  after  a 
market.  This  market  did  not  wait  for  the  com- 
pletion of  the  railroads,  but  met  the  railroads 
more  than  half  way;  indeed,  followed  them 
quite  across  the  plains.  The  frontier  sheriff 
now  came  upon  the  Western  stage  as  he  had 
never  done  before.  The  bad  man  also  sprang 
into  sudden  popular  recognition,  the  more  so 
because  he  was  now  accessible  to  view  and 
within  reach  of  the  tourist  and  tenderfoot  in- 


1 68  The  Story  of 

vestigator  of  the  Western  fauna.  These  were 
palmy  days  for  the  wild  West. 

Unless  it  be  a  placer  camp  in  the  mountains, 
there  is  no  harder  collection  of  human  beings 
to  be  found  than  that  which  gathers  in  tents 
and  shanties  at  a  temporary  railway  terminus 
of  the  frontier.  Yet  such  were  all  the  capitals 
of  civilization  in  the  earliest  days.  One  town 
was  like  another.  The  history  of  Wichita  and 
Newton  and  Fort  Dodge  was  the  history  of 
Abilene  and  Ellsworth  and  Hays  City  and  all 
the  towns  at  the  head  of  the  advancing  rails. 
The  bad  men  and  women  of  one  moved  on  to 
the  nextr^Jist  as  they  did  in  the  stampedes  of 
placer  days. 

To  recount  the  history  of  one  after  another 
of  these  wild  towns  would  be  endless  and  per- 
haps wearisome.  But  this  history  has  one  pecu- 
liar feature  not  yet  noted  in  our  investigations. 
All  these  cow  camps  meant  to  be  real  towns 
some  day.  They  meant  to  take  the  social 
compact.  There  came  to  each  of  these  camps 
men  bent  upon  making  homes,  and  these  men 
began  to  establish  a  law  and  order  spirit  and 
to  set  up  a  government.  Indeed,  the  regular 
system  of  American  government  was  there  as 
soon  as  the  railroad  was  there,  and  this  law 


The  Outlaw  169 

was  strong  on  its  legislative  and  executive  sides. 
The  frontier  sheriff  or  town  marshal  was  there, 
the  man  for  the  place,  as  bold  and  hardy  as  the 
bold  and  hardy  men  he  was  to  meet  and  subdue, 
as  skilled  with  weapons,  as  willing  to  die;  and 
upheld,  moreover,  with  that  sense  of  duty  and 
of  moral  courage  which  is  granted  even  to  the 
most  courageous  of  men  when  he  feels  that  he 
has  the  sentiment  of  the  majority  of  good  people 
at  his  back. 

To  describe  the  life  of  one  Western  town 
marshal,  himself  the  best  and  most  picturesque 
of  them  all,  is  to  cover  all  this  field  sufficiently. 
There  is  but  one  man  who  can  thus  be  chosen, 
and  that  is  Wild  Bill  Hickok,  better  known  for 
a  generation  as  "Wild  Bill,"  and  properly  ac- 
corded an  honorable  place  in  American  history. 

The  real  name  of  Wild  Bill  was  James  But- 
ler Hickok,  and  he  was  born  in  May,  1837,  in 
La  Salle  county,  Illinois.  This  brought  his 
youth  into  the  days  of  Western  exploration  and 
conquest,  and  the  boy  read  of  Carson  and  Fre- 
mont, then  popular  idols,  with  the  result  that 
he  proposed  a  life  of  adventure  for  himself. 
He  was  eighteen  years  of  age  when  he  first 
saw  the  West  as  a  fighting  man  under  Jim 
Lane,  of  Free  Soil  fame,  in  the  guerrilla  days 


170  The  Story  of 

of  Kansas  before  the  civil  war.  He  made  his 
mark,  and  was  elected  a  constable  in  that  dan- 
gerous country  before  he  was  twenty  years  of 
age.  He  was  then  a  tall,  "gangling"  youth, 
six  feet  one  in  height,  with  yellow  hair  and  blue 
eyes.  He  later  developed  into  as  splendid  look- 
ing a  man  as  ever  trod  on  leather,  muscular 
and  agile  as  he  was  powerful  and  enduring. 
His  features  were  clean-cut  and  expressive,  his 
carriage  erect  and  dignified,  and  no  one  ever 
looked  less  the  conventional  part  of  the  bad 
man  assigned  in  popular  imagination.  He  was 
not  a  quarrelsome  man,  although  a  dangerous 
one,  and  his  voice  was  low  and  even,  showing 
a  nervous  system  like  that  of  Daniel  Boone — 
"not  agitated."  It  might  have  been  supposed 
that  he  would  be  a  natural  master  of  weapons, 
and  such  was  the  case.  The  use  of  rifle  and 
revolver  was  born  in  him,  and  perhaps  no  man 
of  the  frontier  ever  surpassed  him  in  quick  and 
accurate  use  of  the  heavy  six-shooter.  The 
religion  of  the  frontier  was  not  to  miss,  and 
rarely  ever  did  he  shoot  except  he  knew  that 
he  would  not  miss.  The  tale  of  his  killings  in 
single  combat  is  the  longest  authentically  as- 
signed to  any  man  in  American  history. 

After  many  experiences  with  the  pro-slavery 


The  Outlaw  171 

folk  from  the  border,  Bill,  or  "Shanghai  Bill," 
as  he  was  then  known — a  nickname  which 
clung  for  years — went  stage  driving  for  the 
Overland,  and  incidentally  did  some  effective 
Indian  fighting  for  his  employers,  finally,  in 
the  year  1861,  settling  down  as  station  agent 
for  the  Overland  at  Rock  Creek  station,  about 
fifty  miles  west  of  Topeka.  He  was  really 
there  as  guard  for  the  horse  band,  for  all  that 
region  was  full  of  horse  thieves  and  cut- 
throats, and  robberies  and  killings  were  com- 
mon enough.  It  was  here  that  there  occurred 
his  greatest  fight,  the  greatest  fight  of  one  man 
against  odds  at  close  range  that  is  mentioned 
in  any  history  of  any  part  of  the  world.  There 
was  never  a  battle  like  it  known,  nor  is  the 
West  apt  again  to  produce  one  matching  it. 

The  borderland  of  Kansas  was  at  that  time, 
as  may  be  remembered,  ground  debated  by  the 
anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery  factions,  who  still 
waged  bitter  war  against  one  another,  killing, 
burning,  and  pillaging  without  mercy.  The 
civil  war  was  then  raging,  and  Confederates 
from  Missouri  were  frequent  visitors  in  east- 
ern Kansas  under  one  pretext  or  another,  of 
which  horse  lifting  was  the  one  most  common, 
it  being  held  legitimate  to  prey  upon  the  enemy 


172  The  Story  of 

as  opportunity  offered.  Two  border  outlaws 
by  the  name  of  the  McCandlas  boys  led  a  gang 
of  hard  men  in  enterprises  of  this  nature,  and 
these  intended  to  run  off  the  stage  company's 
horses  when  they  found  they  could  not  seduce 
Bill  to  join  their  number.  He  told  them  to  come 
and  take  the  horses  if  they  could;  and  on  the 
afternoon  of  December  16,  1861,  ten  of  them, 
led  by  the  McCandlas  brothers,  rode  up  to  his 
dugout  to  do  so.  Bill  was  alone,  his  stableman 
being  away  hunting.  He  retreated  to  the  dark 
interior  of  his  dugout  and  got  ready  his 
weapons,  a  rifle,  two  six-shooters,  and  a  knife. 

The  assailants  proceeded  to  batter  in  the  door 
with  a  log,  and  as  it  fell  in,  Jim  McCandlas, 
who  must  have  been  a  brave  man  to  undertake 
so  foolhardy  a  thing  against  a  man  already 
known  as  a  killer,  sprang  in  at  the  opening. 
He,  of  course,  was  killed  at  once.  This  ex- 
hausted the  rifle,  and  Bill  picked  up  the  six- 
shooters  from  the  table  and  in  three  quick  shots 
killed  three  more  of  the  gang  as  they  rushed 
in  at  the  door.  Four  men  were  dead  in  less 
than  that  many  seconds ;  but  there  were  still 
six  others  left,  all  inside  the  dugout  now,  and 
all  firing  at  him  at  a  range  of  three  feet.  It 
was  almost  a  miracle  that,  under  such  sur- 


From  a  painting  by  John  W.  Norton 

WILD   BILL   HICKOK'S   DESPERATE   FIGHT  IN  THE 
DUG-OUT ONE   MAN  AGAINST  TEN 


The  Outlaw  173 

roundings,  the  man  was  not  killed.  Bill  now 
was  crowded  too  much  to  use  his  firearms,  and 
took  to  the  bowie,  thrusting  at  one  man  and 
another  as  best  he  might.  It  is  known  among 
knife-fighters  that  a  man  will  stand  up  under 
a  lot  of  flesh-cutting  and  blood-letting  until  the 
blade  strikes  a  bone.  Then  he  seems  to  drop 
quickly  if  it  be  a  deep  and  severe  thrust.  In 
this  chance  medley,  the  knife  wounds  inflicted 
on  each  other  by  Bill  and  his  swarming  foes 
did  not  at  first  drop  their  men;  so  that  it  must 
have  been  several  minutes  that  all  seven  of 
them  were  mixed  in  a  mass  of  shooting,  thrust- 
ing, panting,  and  gasping  humanity.  Then 
Jack  McCandlas  swung  his  rifle  barrel  and 
struck  Bill  over  the  head,  springing  upon  him 
with  his  knife  as  well.  Bill  got  his  hand  on 
a  six-shooter  and  killed  him  just  as  he  would 
have  struck.  After  that  no  one  knows  what 
happened,  not  even  Bill  himself,  who  got  his 
name  then  and  there.  "I  just  got  sort  of  wild," 
he  said,  describing  it.  "I  thought  my  heart  was 
on  fire.  I  went  out  to  the  pump  then  to  get 
a  drink,  and  I  was  all  cut  and  shot  to  pieces." 
They  called  him  Wild  Bill  after  that,  and 
he  had  earned  the  name.  There  were  six  dead 
men  on  the  floor  of  the  dugout.  He  had  fairly 


i/4  The  Story  of 

whipped  the  ten  of  them,  and  the  four  remain- 
ing had  enough  and  fled  from  that  awful  hole 
in  the  ground.  Two  of  these  were  badly 
wounded.  Bill  followed  them  to  the  door. 
His  own  weapons  were  exhausted  or  not  at 
hand  by  this  time,  but  his  stableman  came  up 
just  then  with  a  rifle  in  his  hands.  Bill  caught 
it  from  him,  and,  cut  up  as  he  was,  fired  and 
killed  one  of  the  wounded  desperadoes  as  he 
tried  to  mount  his  horse.  The  other  wounded 
man  later  died  of  his  wounds.  Eight  men  were 
killed  by  the  one.  The  two  who  got  to  their 
horses  and  escaped  were  perhaps  never  in  the 
dugout  at  all,  for  it  was  hardly  large  enough 
to  hold  another  man  had  any  wanted  to  get  in. 
There  is  no  record  of  any  fighting  man  to 
equal  this.  It  took  Bill  a  year  to  recover  from 
his  wounds.  The  life  of  the  open  air  and  hard 
work  brought  many  Western  men  through  in- 
juries which  would  be  fatal  in  the  States.  The 
pure  air  of  the  plains  had  much  to  do  with 
this.  Bill  now  took  service  as  wagon-master 
under  General  Fremont  and  managed  to  get 
attacked  by  a  force  of  Confederates  while 
on  his  way  to  Sedalia,  the  war  being  now  in 
full  swing.  He  fled  and  was  pursued;  but, 
shooting  back  with  six-shooters,  killed  four 


The  Outlaw  17$ 

men.  It  will  be  seen  that  he  had  now  in  single 
fight  killed  twelve  men,  and  he  was  very  young. 
This  tally  did  not  cover  Indians,  of  whom  he 
had  slain  several.  Although  he  did  not  enlist, 
he  went  into  the  army  as  an  independent  sharp- 
shooter, just  because  the  fighting  was  good,  and 
his  work  at  this  was  very  deadly.  In  four 
hours  at  the  Pea  Ridge  battle,  where  he  lay  be- 
hind a  log,  on  a  hill  commanding  the  flat  where 
the  Confederates  were  formed,  he  is  said  to 
have  killed  thirty-five  men,  one  of  them  the 
Confederate  General  McCullough.  It  was  like 
shooting  buffalo  for  him.  He  was  charged  by 
a  company  of  the  enemy,  but  was  rescued  by  his 
own  men. 

Not  yet  enlisting,  Bill  went  in  as  a  spy  for 
General  Curtis,  and  took  the  dangerous  work 
of  going  into  "Pap"  Price's  lines,  among  the 
touch-and-go  Missourians  and  Arkansans,  in 
search  of  information  useful  to  the  Union 
forces.  Bill  enlisted  for  business  purposes  in 
a  company  of  Price's  mounted  rangers,  got  the 
knowledge  desired,  and  fled,  killing  a  Confeder- 
ate sergeant  by  name  of  Lawson  in  his  escape. 
Curtis  sent  him  back  again,  this  time  into  the 
forces  of  Kirby  Smith,  then  in  Texas,  but  re- 
ported soon  to  move  up  into  Arkansas.  Bill 


176  The  Story  of 

enlisted  again,  and  again  showed  his  skill  in 
the  saddle,  killing  two  men  as  he  fled.  Count 
up  all  his  known  victims  to  this  time,  and  the 
tally  would  be  at  least  sixty-two  men;  and  Bill 
was  then  but  twenty-five. 

A  third  time  Curtis  sent  Bill  back  into  the 
Confederate  lines,  this  time  into  another  part 
of  Price's  army.  Here  he  was  detected  and  ar- 
rested as  a  spy.  Bound  hand  and  foot  in  his 
death  watch,  he  killed  his  captor  after  he  had 
torn  his  hands  free,  and  once  more  escaped. 
After  that,  he  dared  not  go  back  again,  for  he 
was  too  well  known  and  too  difficult  to  disguise. 
He  could  not  keep  out  of  the  fighting,  however, 
and  went  as  a  scout  and  free  lance  with  General 
Davis,  during  Price's  second  invasion  of  Mis- 
souri. He  was  not  an  enlisted  man,  and  seems 
to  have  done  pretty  much  as  he  liked.  One  day 
he  rode  out  on  his  own  hook,  and  was  stopped 
by  three  men,  who  ordered  him  to  halt  and  dis- 
mount. All  three  men  had  their  hands  on  their 
revolvers;  but,  to  show  the  difference  between 
average  men  and  a  specialist,  Bill  killed  two  of 
them  and  fatally  shot  the  other  before  they 
could  get  into  action.  His  tally  was  now  sixty- 
six  men  at  least. 

Curtis  now  sent  Bill  out  into  Kansas  to  look 


The  Outlaw  177 

into  a  report  that  some  Indians  were  about  to 
join  the  Confederate  forces.  Bill  got  the  news, 
and  also  engaged  in  a  knife  duel  with  the  Sioux, 
Conquering  Bear,  whom  he  accused  of  trying 
to  ambush  him.  It  was  a  fair  and  desperate 
fight,  with  knives,  and  although  Bill  finally 
killed  his  man,  he  himself  was  so  badly  cut  up 
that  he  came  near  dying,  his  arm  being  ripped 
from  shoulder  to  elbow,  a  wound  which  it  took 
years  to  mend.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  man  ever 
survived  such  injuries  as  he  did,  for  by  this 
time  he  was  a  mass  of  scars  from  pistol  and 
knife  wounds.  He  had  probably  been  in  dan- 
ger of  his  life  more  than  a  hundred  times  in 
personal  difficulties;  for  the  man  with  a  reputa- 
tion as  a  bad  man  has  a  reputation  which  needs 
continual  defending. 

After  the  war,  Bill  lived  from  hand  to  mouth, 
like  most  frontier  dwellers.  It  was  at  Spring- 
field, Missouri,  that  another  duel  of  his  long 
list  occurred,  in  which  he  killed  Dave  Tutt,  a 
fine  pistol  shot  and  a  man  with  social  ambitions 
in  badness.  It  was  a  fair  fight  in  the  town 
square  by  appointment.  Bill  killed  his  man  and 
wheeled  so  quickly  on  Tutt's  followers  that  Tutt 
had  not  had  time  to  fall  before  Bill's  six- 
shooter  was  turned  the  opposite  way,  and  he 


178  The  Story  of 

was  asking  Tutt's  friends  if  they  wanted  any 
of  it  themselves.  They  did  not.  This  fight 
was  forced  on  Bill,  and  his  quiet  attempts  to 
avoid  it  and  his  stern  way  of  accepting  it,  when 
inevitable,  won  him  high  estimation  on  the  bor- 
der. Indeed,  he  was  now  known  all  over  the 
country,  and  his  like  has  not  since  been  seen. 
He  was  still  a  splendid  looking  man,  and  as 
cool  and  quiet  and  modest  as  ever  he  had  been. 

Bill  now  went  to  trapping  in  the  less  settled 
parts  of  Nebraska,  and  for  a  while  he  lived  in 
peace,  until  he  fell  into  a  saloon  row  over  some 
trivial  matter  and  invited  four  of  his  opponents 
outside  to  fight  him  with  pistols;  the  four  were 
to  fire  at  the  word,  and  Bill  to  do  the  same — his 
pistol  against  their  four.  In  this  fight  he  killed 
one  man  at  first  fire,  but  he  himself  was  shot 
through  the  shoulder  and  disabled  in  his  right 
arm.  He  killed  two  more  with  his  left  hand 
and  badly  wounded  the  other.  This  was  a  fair 
fight  also,  and  the  only  wonder  is  he  was  not 
killed;  but  he  seemed  never  to  consider  odds, 
and  literally  he  knew  nothing  but  fight. 

His  score  was  now  seventy-two  men,  not 
counting  Indians.  He  himself  never  reported 
how  many  Indians  he  and  Buffalo  Bill  killed 
as  scouts  in  the  Black  Kettle  campaign  under 


The   Outlaw  179 

Carr  and  Primrose,  but  the  killing  of  Black 
Kettle  himself  was  sometimes  attributed  to 
Wild  Bill.  The  latter  was  badly  wounded  in 
the  thigh  with  a  lance,  and  it  took  a  long  time 
for  this  wound  to  heal.  To  give  this  hurt  and 
others  better  opportunity  for  mending,  Bill  now 
took  a  trip  back  East  to  his  home  in  Illinois. 
While  East  he  found  that  he  had  a  reputation, 
and  he  undertook  to  use  it.  He  found  no  way 
of  making  a  living,  however,  and  he  returned 
to  the  West,  where  he  could  better  market  his 
qualifications. 

At  that  time  Hays  City,  Kansas,  was  one  of 
the  hardest  towns  on  the  frontier.  It  had  more 
than  a  hundred  gambling  dives  and  saloons  to 
its  two  thousand  population,  and  murder  was  an 
ordinary  thing.  Hays  needed  a  town  marshal, 
and  one  who  could  shoot.  Wild  Bill  was 
unanimously  selected,  and  in  six  weeks  he  was 
obliged  to  kill  Jack  Strawhan  for  trying  to 
shoot  him.  This  he  did  by  reason  of  his  supe- 
rior quickness  with  the  six-shooter,  for  Strawhan 
was  drawing  first.  Another  bad  man,  Mulvey, 
started  to  run  Hays,  in  whose  peace  and  dignity 
Bill  now  felt  a  personal  ownership.  Covered 
by  Mulvey's  two  revolvers,  Bill  found  room  for 
the  lightning  flash  of  time,  which  is  all  that  is 


180  The  Story  of 

needed  by  the  real  revolver  genius,  and  killed 
Mulvey  on  the  spot.  His  tally  was  now 
seventy-five  men.  He  made  it  seventy-eight  in 
a  fight  with  a  bunch  of  private  soldiers,  who 
called  him  a  "long-hair" — a  term  very  accurate, 
by  the  way,  for  Bill  was  proud  of  his  long, 
blond  hair,  as  was  General  Custer  and  many  an- 
other man  of  the  West  at  that  time.  In  this 
fight,  Bill  was  struck  by  seven  pistol  balls  and 
barely  escaped  alive  by  flight  to  a  ranch  on  the 
prairie  near  by.  He  lay  there  three  weeks,  while 
General  Phil  Sheridan  had  details  out  with 
orders  to  get  him  dead  or  alive.  He  later 
escaped  in  a  box-car  to  another  town,  and  his 
days  as  marshal  of  Hays  were  over. 

Bill  now  tried  his  hand  at  Wild  West  theatri- 
cals, seeing  that  already  many  Easterners  were 
"daffy,"  as  he  called  it,  about  the  West;  but  he 
failed  at  this,  and  went  back  once  more  to  the 
plains  where  he  belonged.  He  was  chosen  mar- 
shal of  Abilene,  then  the  cow  camp  par  excel- 
lence of  the  middle  plains,  and  as  tough  a  com- 
munity as  Hays  had  been. 

The  wild  men  from  the  lower  plains,  fight- 
ing men,  mad  from  whiskey  and  contact  with 
the  settlements'  possibilities  of  long-denied  in- 
dulgence, swarmed  in  the  streets  and  dives, 


The  Outlaw  .     1 8 1 

mingling  with  desperadoes  and  toughs  from  all 
parts  of  the  frontier.  Those  who  have  never 
lived  in  such  a  community  will  never  be  able  by 
any  description  to  understand  its  phenomena. 
It  seems  almost  unbelievable  that  sober,  steady- 
going  America  ever  knew  such  days;  but  there 
they  were,  and  not  so  long  ago,  for  this  was 
only  1870. 

Two  days  after  Bill  was  elected  marshal  of 
Abilene,  he  killed  a  desperado  who  was 
"whooping-up"  the  town  in  customary  fashion. 
That  same  night,  he  was  on  the  street,  in  a  dim 
light,  when  all  at  once  he  saw  a  man  whisk 
around  a  corner,  and  saw  something  shine,  as 
he  thought,  with  the  gleam  of  a  weapon.  As 
showing  how  quick  were  the  hand  and  eye  of 
the  typical  gun-man  of  the  day,  it  may  be  stated 
that  Bill  killed  this  man  in  a  flash,  only  to  find 
later  that  it  was  a  friend,  and  one  of  his  own 
deputies.  The  man  was  only  pulling  a  hand- 
kerchief from  his  pocket.  Bill  knew  that  he 
was  watched  every  moment  by  men  who  wanted 
to  kill  him.  He  had  his  life  in  his  hands  all 
the  time.  For  instance,  he  had  next  to  kill  the 
friend  of  the  desperado  whom  he  had  shot.  By 
this  time,  Abilene  respected  its  new  marshal; 
indeed,  was  rather  proud  of  him.  The  reign 


1 82  The  Story  of 

of  the  bad  man  of  the  plains  was  at  its  height, 
and  the  professional  man-killer,  the  specialist 
with  firearms,  was  a  figure  here  and  there  over 
wide  regions.  Among  all  these  none  compared 
with  this  unique  specimen.  He  was  generous, 
too,  as  he  was  deadly,  for  even  yet  he  was  sup- 
porting a  McCandlas  widow,  and  he  always 
furnished  funerals  for  his  corpses.  He  had  one 
more  to  furnish  soon.  Enemies  down  the 
range  among  the  cow  men  made  up  a  purse  of 
five  thousand  dollars,  and  hired  eight  men  to 
kill  the  town  marshal  and  bring  his  heart  back 
South.  Bill  heard  of  it,  and  literally  made  all 
of  them  jump  off  the  railroad  train  where  he 
met  them.  One  was  killed  in  the  jump.  His 
list  of  homicides  was  now  eighty-one.  He  had 
never  yet  been  arrested  for  murder,  and  his  kill- 
ing was  in  fair  open  fight,  his  life  usually  against 
large  odds.  He  was  a  strange  favorite  of  for- 
tune, who  seemed  certainly  to  shield  him  round- 
about. 

Bill  now  went  East  for  another  try  at  theatri- 
cals, in  which,  happily,  he  was  unsuccessful,  and 
for  which  he  felt  a  strong  distaste.  He  was 
scared — on  the  stage;  and  when  he  saw  what 
was  expected  of  him  he  quit  and  went  back  once 
more  to  the  West.  He  appeared  at  Cheyenne, 


The  Outlaw  183 

in  the  Black  Hills,  wandering  thus  from  one 
point  to  another  after  the  fashion  of  the  fron- 
tier, where  a  man  did  many  things  and  in  many 
places.  He  had  a  little  brush  with  a  band  of 
Indians,  and  killed  four  of  them  with  four 
shots  from  his  six-shooter,  bringing  his  list  in 
red  and  white  to  eighty-five  men.  He  got  away 
alive  from  the  Black  Hills  with  difficulty ;  but  in 
1876  he  was  back  again  at  Deadwood,  married 
now,  and,  one  would  have  thought,  ready  to 
settle  down. 

But  the  life  of  turbulence  ends  in  turbulence. 
He  who  lives  by  the  sword  dies  by  the  sword. 
Deadwood  was  as  bad  a  place  as  any  that  could 
be  found  in  the  mining  regions,  and  Bill  was 
not  an  officer  here,  as  he  had  been  in  Kansas 
towns.  As  marshal  of  Hays  and  Abilene  and 
United  States  marshal  later  at  Hays  City,  he 
had  been  a  national  character.  He  was  at 
Deadwood  for  the  time  only  plain  Wild  Bill, 
handsome,  quiet,  but  ready  for  anything. 

Ready  for  anything  but  treachery !  He  him- 
self had  always  fought  fair  and  in  the  open. 
His  men  were  shot  in  front.  Not  such  was  to 
be  his  fate.  On  the  day  of  August  2,  1876, 
while  he  was  sitting  at  a  game  of  cards  in  a 
saloon,  a  hard  citizen  by  name  of  Jack  McCall 


184  The  Story  of 

slipped  up  behind  him,  placed  a  pistol  to  the 
back  of  his  head,  and  shot  him  dead  before  he 
knew  he  had  an  enemy  near.  The  ball  passed 
through  Bill's  head  and  out  at  the  cheek,  lodg- 
ing in  the  arm  of  a  man  across  the  table. 

Bill  had  won  a  little  money  from  McCall 
earlier  in  the  day,  and  won  it  fairly,  but  the 
latter  had  a  grudge,  and  was  no  doubt  one  of 
those  disgruntled  souls  who  "had  it  in"  for  all 
the  rest  of  the  world.  He  got  away  with  the 
killing  at  the  time,  for  a  miners1  court  let  him 
go.  A  few  days  later,  he  began  to  boast  about 
his  act,  seeing  what  fame  was  his  for  ending  so 
famous  a  life ;  but  at  Yankton  they  arrested  him, 
tried  him  before  a  real  court,  convicted  him, 
and  hanged  him  promptly. 

Wild  Bill's  body  was  buried  at  Deadwood, 
and  his  grave,  surrounded  by  a  neat  railing  and 
marked  by  a  monument,  long  remained  one  of 
the  features  of  Deadwood.  The  monument  and 
fence  were  disfigured  by  vandals  who  sought 
some  memento  of  the  greatest  bad  man  ever 
in  all  likelihood  seen  upon  the  earth.  His  tally 
of  eighty-five  men  seems  large,  but  in  fair  prob- 
ability it  is  not  large  enough.  His  main  en- 
counters are  known  historically.  He  killed  a 
great  many  Indians  at  different  times,  but  of 


The  Outlaw  185 

these  no  accurate  estimate  can  be  claimed.  Nor 
is  his  list  of  victims  as  a  sharpshooter  in  the 
army  legitimately  to  be  added  to  his  record. 
Cutting  out  all  doubtful  instances,  however, 
there  remains  no  doubt  that  he  killed  between 
twenty  and  thirty  men  in  personal  combat  in 
the  open,  and  that  never  once  was  he  tried  in 
any  court  on  a  charge  even  of  manslaughter. 

This  record  is  not  approached  by  that  of  any 
other  known  bad  man.  Many  of  them  are 
credited  with  twenty  men,  a  dozen  men,  and  so 
forth;  but  when  the  records  are  sifted  the  list 
dwindles.  It  is  doubted  whether  any  other  bad 
man  in  America  ever  actually  killed  twenty  men 
in  fair  personal  combat.  Bill  was  not  killed 
in  fair  fight,  nor  could  McCall  have  hurt  him 
had  Bill  suspected  his  intent. 

Hickok  was  about  thirty-nine  years  old  when 
killed,  and  he  had  averaged  a  little  more  than 
two  men  for  each  year  of  his  entire  life.  He 
was  well-known  among  army  officers,  and  es- 
teemed as  a  scout  and  a  man,  never  regarded 
as  a  tough  in  any  sense.  He  was  a  man  of 
singular  personal  beauty.  Of  him  General 
Custer,  soon  thereafter  to  fall  a  victim  himself 
upon  the  plains,  said:  "He  was  a  plainsman 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  yet  unlike  any  other 


1 86  The  Story  of 

of  his  class.  Whether  on  foot  or  on  horse- 
back, he  was  one  of  the  most  perfect  types  of 
physical  manhood  I  ever  saw.  His  manner  was 
entirely  free  from  all  bluster  and  bravado.  He 
never  spoke  of  himself  unless  requested  to  do 
so.  His  influence  among  the  frontiersmen  was 
unbounded;  his  word  was  law.  Wild  Bill  was 
anything  but  a  quarrelsome  man,  yet  none  but 
himself  could  enumerate  the  many  conflicts  in 
which  he  had  been  engaged." 

These  are  the  words  of  one  fighting  man 
about  another,  and  both  men  are  entitled  to 
good  rank  in  the  annals  of  the  West.  The 
praise  of  an  army  general  for  a  man  of  no  rank 
or  wealth  leaves  us  feeling  that,  after  all,  it 
was  a  possible  thing  for  a  bad  man  to  be  a  good 
man,  and  worthy  of  respect  and  admiration, 
utterly  unmingled  with  maudlin  sentiment  or 
weak  love  for  the  melodramatic. 


The  Outlaw  187 


Chapter  XIII 

Frontier  Wars — Armed  Conflicts  of  Bodies  of 
Men  on  the  Frontiers — Political  Wars;  Town 
Site  Wars;  Cattle  Wars — Factional  Fights. 

THE  history  of  the  border  wars  on  the 
American  frontier,  where  the  fighting 
was  more  like  battle  than  murder,  and 
where  the  extent  of  the  crimes  against  law  be- 
came too  large  for  the  law  ever  to  undertake 
any  settlement,  would  make  a  long  series  of 
bloody  volumes.  These  wars  of  the  frontier 
were  sometimes  political,  as  the  Kansas  anti- 
slavery  warfare;  or,  again,  they  were  fights 
over  town  sites,  one  armed  band  against  an- 
other, and  both  against  the  law.  Wars  over 
cows,  as  of  the  cattle  men  against  the  rustlers  and 
"little  fellows,"  often  took  on  the  phase  of  large 
armed  bodies  of  men  meeting  in  bloody  en- 
counter; though  the  bloodiest  of  these  wars  are 
those  least  known,  and  the  opera  bouffe  wars 
those  most  widely  advertised. 


1 88  The  Story  of 

The  state  of  Kansas,  now  so  calm  and  peace- 
ful, is  difficult  to  picture  as  the  scene  of  a  gen- 
eral bloodshed;  yet  wherever  you  scratch  Kan- 
sas history  you  find  a  fight.  No  territory  of 
equal  size  has  had  so  much  war  over  so  many 
different  causes.  Her  story  in  Indian  fighting, 
gambler  fighting,  outlaw  fighting,  town  site 
fighting,  and  political  fighting  is  one  not  ap- 
proached by  any  other  portion  of  the  West; 
and  if  at  times  it  was  marked  with  fanaticism  or 
with  sordidness,  it  was  none  the  less  bitter  and 
notable. 

The  border  wars  of  Kansas  and  Missouri  at 
the  time  immediately  preceding  the  civil  war 
would  be  famed  in  song  and  story,  had  not  the 
greater  conflict  between  North  and  South  wiped 
all  that  out  of  memory.  Even  the  North  was 
divided  over  the  great  question  of  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise.  Alabama,  Arkan- 
sas, California,  Delaware,  Florida,  Georgia, 
Indiana,  Iowa,  Kentucky,  Louisiana,  Mary- 
land, Michigan,  Missouri,  New  Hampshire, 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
Texas,  and  Virginia  gave  a  whole  or  a  majority 
vote  for  this  repeal  of  the  Compromise. 
Against  the  repeal  were  Connecticut,  Maine, 
Massachusetts,  New  York,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania, 


The  Outlaw  189 

Rhode  Island,  Vermont,  and  Wisconsin.  Illi- 
nois and  New  Jersey  voted  a  tie  vote.  Ohio 
cast  four  votes  for  the  repeal  measure,  seven- 
teen against  it. 

This  vote  brought  the  territories  of  Kansas 
and  Nebraska  into  the  Union  with  the  option 
open  on  whether  or  not  they  should  have 
slavery:  "it  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning 
of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  terri- 
tory, nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave 
the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  own  domestic  institutions  in  their 
own  way." 

That  was  very  well;  but  who  were  "the  peo- 
ple" of  these  debated  grounds?  Hundreds  of 
abolitionists  of  the  North  thought  it  their  duty 
to  flock  to  Kansas  and  take  up  arms.  Hundreds 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Missouri  thought  it  in- 
cumbent upon  them  to  run  across  the  line  and 
vote  in  Kansas  on  the  "domestic  institutions"; 
and  to  shoot  in  Kansas  and  to  burn  and  ravage 
in  Kansas.  They  were  met  by  the  anti-slavery 
legions  along  the  wide  frontier,  and  brother 
slew  brother  for  years,  one  series  of  more  or 
less  ignoble  and  dastardly  outrages  following 
another  in  big  or  little,  murders  and  arson  in 
big  or  little,  until  the  whole  country  at  last  was 


190  The  Story  of 

drawn  into  this  matter  of  the  domestic  institu- 
tions of  "bleeding  Kansas."  The  animosities 
formed  in  those  days  were  bitter  and  enduring 
ones,  and  the  more  prominent  figures  on  both 
sides  were  men  marked  for  later  slaughter. 
The  civil  war  and  the  slavery  question  were 
fought  out  all  over  the  West  for  ten  years,  even 
twenty  years  after  the  war  was  over.  Some 
large  figures  came  up  out  of  this  internecine 
strife,  and  there  were  many  deeds  of  courage 
and  many  romantic  adventures;  but  on  the 
whole,  although  the  result  of  all  this  was  for 
the  best,  and  added  another  state  to  the  list 
unalterably  opposed  to  human  slavery,  the 
story  in  detail  is  not  a  pleasant  one,  and  adds 
no  great  glory  to  either  side.  It  is  a  chapter 
of  American  history  which  is  very  well  let  alone. 
When  the  railroads  came  across  the  Western 
plains,  they  brought  a  man  who  has  been  pres- 
ent on  the  American  frontier  ever  since  the 
revolutionary  war, — the  land  boomer.  He  was 
in  Kentucky  in  time  to  rob  poor  old  Daniel 
Boone  of  all  the  lands  he  thought  he  owned. 
He  founded  Marietta,  on  the  Ohio  river,  on  a 
land  steal;  and  thence,  westward,  laid  out  one 
town  after  another.  The  early  settler  who 
came  down  the  Ohio  valley  in  the  first  and  sec- 


The  Outlaw  191 

ond  decades  of  the  past  century  passed  the 
ruins  of  abandoned  towns  far  back  to  the  east 
even  in  that  day.  The  town-site  shark  passed 
across  the  Mississippi  river  and  the  Missouri, 
and  everywhere  his  record  was  the  same.  He 
was  the  pioneer  of  avarice  in  very  many  cases, 
and  often  he  inaugurated  strife  where  he  pur- 
ported to  be  establishing  law.  Each  town 
thought  itself  the  garden  spot  and  center  of  the 
universe — one  knows  not  how  many  Kansas 
towns,  for  instance,  contended  over  the  absurd 
honor  of  being  exactly  at  the  center  of  the 
United  States! — and  local  pride  was  such  that 
each  citizen  must  unite  with  others  even  in  arms, 
if  need  be,  to  uphold  the  merits  of  his  own 
"city." 

This  peculiar  phase  of  frontier  nature  usually 
came  most  into  evidence  over  the  questions  of 
county  seats.  Hardly  a  frontier  county  seat 
was  ever  established  without  a  fight  of  some 
kind,  and  often  a  bloody  one.  It  has  chanced 
that  the  author  has  been  in  and  around  a  few 
of  these  clashes  between  rival  towns,  and  he 
may  say  that  the  vehemence  of  the  antagonism 
of  such  encounters  would  have  been  humorous, 
had  it  not  been  so  deadly.  Two  "cities,"  com- 
posed each  of  a  few  frame  shanties  and  a  set  of 


192  The  Story  of 

blue-print  maps,  one  just  as  barren  of  delight 
as  the  other,  and  neither  worth  fighting  over 
at  the  time,  do  not  seem  typical  of  any  great 
moral  purpose;  yet  at  times  their  citizens 
fought  as  stubbornly  as  did  the  men  who  fought 
for  and  against  slavery  in  Kansas.  One  in- 
stance of  this  sort  of  thing  will  do,  and  it  is 
covered  in  the  chapter  describing  the  Stevens 
County  War,  one  of  the  most  desperate  and 
bloody,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  recent  feuds 
of  local  politicians. 

For  some  reason,  perhaps  that  of  remoteness 
of  time,  the  wars  of  the  cow  men  of  the  range 
seem  to  have  had  a  bolder,  a  less  sordid  and 
more  romantic  interest,  if  these  terms  be  allow- 
able. When  the  cow  man  began  to  fence  up 
the  free  range,  to  shut  up  God's  out-of-doors, 
he  intrenched  upon  more  than  a  local  or  a 
political  pride.  He  was  now  infringing  upon 
the  great  principle  of  personal  freedom.  He 
was  throttling  the  West  itself,  which  had 
always  been  a  land  of  freedom.  One  does  not 
know  whether  all  one's  readers  have  known  it, 
that  unspeakable  feeling  of  freedom,  of  inde- 
pendence, of  rebellion  at  restraint,  which  came 
when  one  could  ride  or  drive  for  days  across 
the  empire  of  the  plains  and  never  meet  a  fence 


The   Outlaw  193 

to  hinder,  nor  need  a  road  to  show  the  way.  To 
meet  one  of  these  new  far-flung  fences  of  the 
rich  men  who  began  to  take  up  the  West  was 
at  that  time  only  to  cut  it  and  ride  on.  The 
free  men  of  the  West  would  not  be  fenced  in. 
The  range  was  theirs,  so  they  blindly  and  lov- 
ingly thought.  Let  those  blame  them  who  love 
this  day  more  than  that. 

But  the  fence  was  the  sign  of  the  property- 
owning  man ;  and  the  property-owning  man  has 
always  beaten  the  nomad  and  the  restless  man 
at  last,  and  set  metes  and  bounds  for  him  to  ob- 
serve. The  nesters  and  rustlers  fought  out  the 
battle  for  the  free  range  more  fiercely  than  was 
ever  generally  known. 

One  of  the  most  widely  known  of  these  cow 
wars  was  the  absurd  Johnson  County  War, 
of  Wyoming,  which  got  much  newspaper  ad- 
vertising at  the  time — the  summer  of  1892 — 
and  which  was  always  referred  to  with  a  certain 
contempt  among  old-timers  as  the  "dude  war." 
Only  two  men  were  killed  in  this  war,  and  the 
non-resident  cattle  men  who  undertook  to  be 
ultra-Western  and  do  a  little  vigilante  work 
for  themselves  among  the  rustlers  found  that 
they  were  not  fit  for  the  task.  They  were 
very  glad  indeed  to  get  themselves  arrested 


194  The  Story  of 

and  under  cover,  more  especially  in  the  protec- 
tion of  the  military.  They  found  that  they  had 
not  lost  any  rustlers  when  they  stirred  up  a 
whole  valley  full  and  were  themselves  besieged, 
surrounded,  and  well-nigh  ready  for  a  general 
wiping  out.  They  killed  a  couple  of  "little  fel- 
lows," or,  rather,  some  of  their  hired  Texas 
cow  boys  did  it  for  them,  but  that  was  all  they 
accomplished,  except  well-nigh  to  bankrupt 
Wyoming  in  the  legal  muddle,  out  of  which,  of 
course,  nothing  came.  There  were  in  this  party 
of  cattle  men  a  member  of  the  legislature,  a 
member  of  the  stock  commission,  some  two 
dozen  wealthy  cattle  men,  two  Harvard  gradu- 
ates, and  a  young  Englishman  in  search  of  ad- 
venture. They  made,  on  the  whole,  about  the 
most  contemptible  and  inefficient  band  of  vigi- 
lantes that  ever  went  out  to  regulate  things, 
although  their  deeds  were  reported  by  wire  to 
many  journals,  and  for  a  time  perhaps  they  felt 
that  they  were  cutting  quite  a  figure.  They  had 
very  large  property  losses  to  incite  them  to  their 
action,  for  the  rustlers  were  then  pretty  much 
running  things  in  that  part  of  Wyoming,  and 
the  local  courts  would  not  convict  them.  This 
fiasco  scarcely  hastened  the  advent  of  the  day — 
which  came  soon  enough  after  the  railroads  and 


The  Outlaw 


the  farmers  —  under  which  the  home  dweller 
outweighed  the  nomad.* 

Wars  between  sheep  men  and  cattle  men 
sometimes  took  on  the  phase  of  armed  bodies 
of  men  meeting  in  bloody  encounter.  The 
sheep  were  always  unwelcome  on  the  range, 
and  are  so  to-day,  although  the  courts  now  ad- 
just such  matters  better  than  they  formerly  did. 
The  cow  baron  and  his  men  often  took  revenge 
upon  the  woolly  nuisances  themselves  and  killed 
them  in  numbers.  The  author  knows  of  one 
instance  where  five  thousand  sheep  were  killed 
in  one  box  canon  by  irate  cow  men  whose  range 
had  been  invaded.  The  sheep  eat  the  grass 
down  to  the  point  of  killing  it,  and  cattle  will 
not  feed  on  a  country  which  sheep  have  crossed. 
Many  wars  of  this  kind  have  been  known  all 
the  way  from  Montana  to  Mexico. 

Again,  factional  fights  might  arise  over  some 
trivial  matter  as  an  immediate  cause,  in  a  com- 
munity or  a  region  where  numbers  of  men 
fairly  equal  were  separated  in  self-interest.  In 
a  day  when  life  was  still  wild  and  free,  and 
when  the  law  was  still  unknown,  these  differ- 
ences of  opinion  sometimes  led  to  bitter  and 
bloody  conflicts  between  factions. 

*  See  "  The  Story  of  the  Cowboy,"  by  E.  Hough.     D.  Appleton  &  Co. 


196  The  Story  of 


Chapter  XIV 

The  Lincoln  County  War — The  Bloodiest, 
Most  Dramatic  and  Most  Romantic  of  all  the 
Border  Wars — First  Authentic  Story  Ever 
Printed  of  the  Bitterest  Feud  of  the  Southwest. 

THE  entire  history  of  the  American 
frontier  is  one  of  rebellion  against  the 
law,  if,  indeed,  that  may  be  called  re- 
bellion whose  apostles  have  not  yet  recognized 
any  authority  of  the  law.  The  frontier  ante- 
dated anarchy.  It  broke  no  social  compact,  for 
it  had  never  made  one.  Its  population  asked 
no  protection  save  that  afforded  under  the  stern 
suzerainty  of  the  six-shooter.  The  anarchy  of 
the  frontier,  if  we  may  call  it  such,  was  some- 
times little  more  than  self-interest  against  self- 
interest.  This  was  the  true  description  of  the 
border  conflict  now  in  question. 

The  Lincoln  County  War,  fully  speaking, 
embraced  three  wars;  the  Pecos  War  of  the 
early  '70*5,  the  Harold  War  of  1874,  and  the 


The   Outlaw  197 

Lincoln  County  War  proper,  which  may  be  said 
to  have  begun  in  1874  and  to  have  ended  in 
1879.  The  actors  in  these  different  conflicts 
were  all  intermingled.  There  was  no  blood 
feud  at  the  bottom  of  this  fighting.  It  was  the 
war  of  self-interest  against  self-interest,  each 
side  supported  by  numbers  of  fighting  men. 

At  that  time  Lincoln  County,  New  Mexico, 
was  about  as  large  as  the  state  of  Pennsylvania. 
For  judicial  purposes  it  was  annexed  to  Donna 
Ana  County,  and  its  territories  included  both 
the  present  counties  of  Eddy  and  Chaves,  and 
part  of  what  is  now  Donna  Ana.  It  extended 
west  practically  as  far  the  Rio  Grande  river, 
and  embraced  a  tract  of  mountains  and  high 
tableland  nearly  two  hundred  miles  square. 
Out  of  this  mountain  chain,  to  the  east  and 
southeast,  ran  two  beautiful  mountain  streams, 
the  Bonito  and  the  Ruidoso,  flowing  into  the 
Hondo,  which  continues  on  to  the  flat  valley  of 
the  Pecos  river — once  the  natural  pathway  of 
the  Texas  cattle  herds  bound  north  to  Utah  and 
the  mountain  territories,  and  hence  the  natural 
pathway  also  for  many  lawful  or  lawless  citi- 
zens from  Texas. 

At  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  Texas  was  full 
of  unbranded  and  unowned  cattle.  Out  of  the 


198  The  Story  of 

town  of  Paris,  Texas,  which  was  founded  by 
his  father,  came  one  John  Chisum — one  of  the 
most  typical  cow  men  that  ever  lived.  Bold, 
fearless,  shrewd,  unscrupulous,  genial,  mag- 
netic, he  was  the  man  of  all  others  to  occupy  a 
kingdom  which  had  heretofore  had  no  ruler. 

John  Chisum  drove  the  first  herds  up  the 
Pecos  trail  to  the  territorial  market.  He  held 
at  one  time  perhaps  eighty  thousand  head  of 
cattle  under  his  brand  of  the  "Long  I"  and 
"jinglebob."  Moreover,  he  had  powers  of  at- 
torney from  a  great  many  cow  men  in  Texas 
and  lower  New  Mexico,  authorizing  him  to 
take  up  any  trail  cattle  which  he  found  under 
their  respective  brands.  He  carried  a  tin  cylin- 
der, large  as  a  water-spout,  that  contained, 
some  said,  more  than  a  thousand  of  these  pow- 
ers of  attorney.  At  least,  it  is  certain  he  had 
papers  enough  to  give  him  a  wide  authority. 
Chisum  riders  combed  every  north-bound  herd. 
If  they  found  the  cattle  of  any  of  his  "friends," 
they  were  cut  out  and  turned  on  the  Chisum 
range.  There  were  many  "little  fellows," 
small  cattlemen,  nested  here  and  there  on  the 
flanks  of  the  Chisum  herds.  What  more  natural 
than  that  they  should  steal  from  him,  in  case 
they  found  a  market  of  their  own?  That  was 


JOHN   SIMPSON   CHISUM 

A  t'amous  cattle  king,  died  December  23,  1884 


The   Outlaw  199 

much  easier  than  raising  cows  of  their  own. 
Now,  there  was  a  market  up  this  winding  Bo- 
nito  valley,  at  Lincoln  and  Fort  Stanton.  The 
soldiers  of  the  latter  post,  and  the  Indians  of 
the  Mescalero  reservation  near  by,  needed  sup- 
plies. There  were  others  besides  John  Chisum 
who  might  need  a  beef  contract  now  and  then, 
and  cattle  to  fill  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  civil  war,  there  was  in 
New  Mexico,  with  what  was  known  as  the  Cali- 
fornia Column,  which  joined  the  forces  of  New 
Mexican  volunteers,  an  officer  known  as  Major 
L.  G.  Murphy.  After  the  war,  a  great  many 
men  settled  near  the  points  where  they  were  mus- 
tered out  in  the  South  and  West.  It  was  thus 
with  Major  Murphy,  who  located  as  post- 
trader  at  the  little  frontier  post  known  as  Fort 
Stanton,  which  was  founded  by  Captain  Frank 
Stanton  in  1854,  in  the  Indian  days.  John 
Chisum  located  his  Bosque  Grande  ranch 
about  1865,  and  Murphy  came  to  Fort  Stanton 
about  1866.  In  1875,  Chisum  dropped  down 
to  his  South  Spring  River  ranch,  and  by  that 
time  Murphy  had  been  thrown  out  of  the  post- 
tradership  by  Major  Clendenning,  command- 
ing officer,  who  did  not  like  his  methods.  He 
had  dropped  nine  miles  down  the  Bonito  from 


aoo  The  Story  of 

Fort  Stanton,  with  two  young  associates,  under 
the  firm  name  of  Murphy,  Riley  &  Dolan,  some- 
times spoken  of  as  L.  G.  Murphy  &  Co. 

Murphy  was  a  haf  d-drinking  man,  yet  withal 
something  of  a  student.  He  was  intelligent, 
generous,  bold  and  shrewd.  He  "staked" 
every  little  cow  man  in  Lincoln  county,  includ- 
ing a  great  many  who  hung  on  the  flanks  of 
John  Chisum's  herds.  These  men  in  turn  were 
in  their  ethics  bound  to  support  him  and  his 
methods.  Murphy  was  king  of  the  Bonito 
country.  Chisum  was  king  of  the  Pecos;  not 
merchant  but  cow  man,  and  caring  for  nothing 
which  had  not  grass  and  water  on  it. 

Here,  then,  were  two  rival  kings.  Each  at 
times  had  occasion  for  a  beef  contract.  The 
result  is  obvious  to  anyone  who  knows  the  ways 
of  the  remoter  West  in  earlier  days.  The 
times  were  ripe  for  trouble.  Murphy  bought 
stolen  beef,  and  furnished  bran  instead  of  flour 
on  his  Indian  contracts,  as  the  government 
records  show.  His  henchmen  held  the  Chisum 
herds  as  their  legitimate  prey.  Thus  we  now 
have  our  stage  set  and  peopled  for  the  grim 
drama  of  a  bitter  border  war. 

The  Pecos  war  was  mostly  an  indiscriminate 
killing  among  cow  men  and  cattle  thieves,  and 


The  Outlaw  201 

it  cost  many  lives,  though  it  had  no  beginning 
and  no  end.  The  Texas  men,  hard  riders  and 
cheerful  shooters  for  the  most  part,  came  push- 
ing up  the  Pecos  and  into  the  Bonito  canon. 
Among  these,  in  1874,  were  four  brothers 
known  as  the  Harold  boys,  Bill,  Jack,  Tom 
and  Bob,  who  had  come  from  Texas  in  1872. 
Two  of  them  located  ranches  on  the  Ruidoso, 
being  "staked"  therein  by  Major  Murphy,  king 
for  that  part  of  the  countryside.  The  Harold 
boys  once  undertook  to  run  the  town  of  Lin- 
coln, and  a  foolish  justice  ordered  a  constable 
to  arrest  them.  One  Gillam,  an  ex-sheriff,  told 
the  boys  to  put  on  their  guns.  On  that  night 
there  were  killed  Gillam,  Bill  Harold,  Dave 
Warner  and  Martinez,  the  Mexican  constable. 
The  dead  body  of  Martinez  was  lying  in  the 
street  the  next  morning  with  a  deep  cross  cut 
on  the  forehead.  From  that  time  on  for  the 
next  five  years,  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  to 
see  dead  men  lying  in  the  streets  of  Lincoln. 
The  Harold  boys  had  sworn  revenge. 

There  was  a  little  dance  in  an  adobe  one 
night  at  Lincoln,  when  Ben  Harold  and  some 
Texas  men  from  the  Seven  Rivers  country  rode 
up.  They  killed  four  men  and  one  woman  that 
night  before  they  started  back  to  Seven  Rivers. 


202  The  Story  of 

From  that  time  on,  it  was  Texas  against  the 
law,  such  as  the  latter  was.  No  resident  places 
the  number  of  the  victims  of  the  Harold  war 
at  less  than  forty  or  fifty,  and  it  is  believed  that 
at  least  seventy-five  would  be  more  correct. 
These  killings  proved  the  weakness  of  the  law, 
for  none  of  the  Harold  gang  was  ever  punished. 
As  for  the  Lincoln  County  War  proper,  the 
magazine  was  now  handsomely  laid.  Only  the 
spark  was  needed.  What  would  that  naturally 
be?  Either  an  actual  law  court,  or  else — 
a  woman !  In  due  time,  both  were  forth- 
coming. 

The  woman  in  the  case  still  lives  to-day  in 
New  Mexico,  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  "Cat- 
tle Queen"  of  New  Mexico.  She  bears  now 
the  name  of  Mrs.  Susan  E.  Barber.  Her 
maiden  name  was  Susan  E.  Hummer,  the  name 
sometimes  spelled  Homer,  and  she  was  born  in 
Gettysburg,  Pennsylvania.  Susan  Hummer 
was  a  granddaughter  of  Anna  Maria  Spangler- 
Stauffer.  The  Spangler  family  is  a  noble  one 
of  Germany  and  very  old.  George  Spangler 
was  cup-bearer  to  Godfrey,  Chancellor  of 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  and  was  with  the  latter 
on  the  Crusade  when  Barbarossa  was  drowned 
in  the  Syrian  river,  Calycadmus,  in  1190.  The 


The  Outlaw 


203 


American  seat  of  this  old  family  was  in  York 
county,  Pennsylvania,  where  the  first  Spanglers 
settled  in  1731.  It  was  from  this  tenacious  and 
courageous  ancestry  that  there  sprang  this  figure 
of  a  border  warfare  in  a  region  wild  as  Barba- 
rossa's  realm  centuries  ago. 

On  August  23,  1873,  in  Atchlson,  Kansas, 
Susan  Hummer  was  married  to  Alexander  A. 
McSween,  a  young  lawyer  fresh  from  the 
Washington  university  law  school  of  St.  Louis. 
McSween  was  born  in  Charlottetown,  Prince 
Edward  Island,  and  was  educated  in  the  first 
place  as  a  Presbyterian  minister.  He  was 
a  man  of  good  appearance,  of  intelligence  and 
address,  and  of  rather  more  polish  than  the 
average  man.  He  was  an  orator,  a  dreamer, 
and  a  visionary;  a  strange,  complex  character. 
He  was  not  a  fighting  man,  and  belonged  any- 
where in  the  world  rather  than  on  the  frontier 
of  the  bloody  Southwest.  His  health  was  not 
good,  and  he  resolved  to  journey  to  New 
Mexico.  He  and  his  young  bride  started  over- 
land, with  a  good  team  and  conveyance,  and 
reached  the  little  placita  of  Lincoln,  in  the 
Bonito  canon,  March  15,  1875.  Outside  of 
the  firm  of  Murphy,  Riley  &  Dolan,  there  were 
at  that  time  but  one  or  two  other  American 


204  The  Story  of 

families.  McSween  started  up  in  the  practice 
of  law. 

There  appeared  in  northern  New  Mexico  at 
about  this  time  an  Englishman  by  the  name  of 
J.  H.  Tunstall,  newly  arrived  in  the  West  in 
search  of  investment.  Tunstall  was  told  that 
there  was  good  open  cattle  range  to  be  had  in 
Lincoln  county.  He  came  to  Lincoln,  met  Mc- 
Sween, formed  a  partnership  with  him  in  the 
banking  and  mercantile  business,  and,  more- 
over, started  for  himself,  and  altogether  inde- 
pendently, a  horse  and  cattle  ranch  on  the  Rio 
Feliz,  a  day's  journey  below  Lincoln.  Now, 
King  Murphy,  of  Lincoln  county,  found  a  rival 
business  growing  up  directly  under  his  eyes.  He 
liked  this  no  better  than  King  Chisum  liked  the 
little  cow  men  on  his  flanks  in  the  Seven  Rivers 
country.  Things  were  ripening  still  more 
rapidly  for  trouble.  Presently,  the  immediate 
cause  made  its  appearance. 

There  had  been  a  former  partner  and  friend 
of  Major  Murphy  in  the  post-tradership  at 
Fort  Stanton,  Colonel  Emil  Fritz,  who  estab- 
lished the  Fritz  ranch,  a  few  miles  below  Lin- 
coln. Colonel  Fritz  having  amassed  a  consider- 
able fortune,  concluded  to  return  to  Germany. 
He  had  insured  his  life  in  the  American  Insur- 


The  Outlaw  205 

ance  Company  for  ten  thousand  dollars,  and 
had  made  a  will  leaving  this  policy,  or  the 
greater  part  of  it,  to  his  sister.  The  latter  had 
married  a  clerk  at  Fort  Stanton  by  the  name  of 
Scholland,  but  did  not  get  along  well  with  her 
husband.  Heretofore  no  such  thing  as  divorce 
had  been  known  in  that  part  of  the  world;  but 
courts  and  lawyers  were  now  present,  and  it 
occurred  to  Mrs.  Scholland  to  have  a  divorce. 
She  sent  to  Mr.  McSween  for  legal  counsel,  and 
for  a  time  lived  in  the  McSween  house. 

Now  came  news  of  the  death,  in  Germany, 
of  Colonel  Emil  Fritz.  His  brother,  Charlie 
Fritz,  undertook  to  look  up  the  estate.  He 
found  the  will  and  insurance  policy  had  been 
left  with  Major  Murphy;  but  Major  Murphy, 
accustomed  to  running  affairs  in  his  own  way, 
refused  to  give  up  the  Emil  Fritz  will,  and 
forced  McSween  to  get  a  court  order  appoint- 
ing Mrs.  Scholland  administratrix  of  the  Fritz 
estate.  Not  even  in  that  capacity  would  Major 
Murphy  deliver  to  her  the  will  and  insurance 
policy  when  they  were  demanded,  and  it  is 
claimed  that  he  destroyed  the  will.  Certainly 
it  was  never  probated.  Murphy  was  accus- 
tomed to  keep  this  will  in  a  tin  can,  hid  in  a  hole 
in  the  adobe  wall  of  his  store  building.  There 


206  The  Story  of 

were  no  safes  at  that  time  and  place.  The 
policy  had  been  left  as  security  for  a  loan  of 
nine  hundred  dollars  advanced  by  a  firm  known 
as  Spiegelberg  Brothers.  Few  ingredients  were 
now  lacking  for  a  typical  melodrama.  Mean- 
time the  plot  thickened  by  the  failure  of  the  in- 
surance company! 

McSween,  in  the  interest  of  Mrs.  Scholland, 
now  went  East  to  see  what  could  be  done  in  the 
collection  of  the  insurance  policy.  He  was  able 
finally,  in  1876,  to  collect  the  full  amount  of  ten 
thousand  dollars,  and  this  he  deposited  in  his 
own  name  in  a  St.  Louis  bank  then  owned  by 
Colonel  Hunter.  He  had  been  obliged  to  pay 
the  Spiegelbergs  the  face  of  their  loan  before 
he  could  get  the  policy  to  take  East  with  him. 
He  wished  to  be  secured  against  this  advance- 
ment and  reimbursed  as  well  for  his  expenses, 
which,  together  with  his  fee,  amounted  to  a  con- 
siderable sum.  Moreover,  the  German  Minis- 
ter enjoined  McSween  from  turning  over  any 
of  this  money,  as  there  were  other  heirs  in  Ger- 
many. Major  Murphy  owed  McSween  some 
money.  Colonel  Fritz  also  died  owing  Mc- 
Sween thirty-three  hundred  dollars,  fees  due  on 
legal  work.  Yet  Murphy  demanded  the  full 
amount  of  the  insurance  policy  from  McSween 


The  Outlaw  207 

again  and  again.  Murphy,  Riley  &  Dolan 
now  sued  out  an  attachment  on  McSween's 
property,  and  levied  on  the  goods  in  the  Tun- 
stall-McSween  store.  The  "law"  was  now 
doing  its  work;  but  there  was  a  very  liberal 
interpretation  put  upon  the  law's  intent.  As 
construed  by  Sheriff  William  Brady,  the  writ 
applied  also  to  the  Englishman  Tunstall's  prop- 
erty in  cattle  and  horses  on  the  Rio  Feliz 
ranch;  which,  of  course,  was  high-handed 
illegality.  McSween's  statement  that  he  had  no 
interest  in  the  Feliz  ranch  served  no  purpose. 
Brady  and  Murphy  were  warm  friends.  The 
lawyer  McSween  had  accused  them  of  being 
something  more  than  that — allies  and  conspira- 
tors. McSween  and  Tunstall  bought  Lincoln 
county  scrip  cheap;  but  when  they  presented  it 
to  the  county  treasurer,  Murphy,  it  was 
not  paid,  and  it  was  charged  that  he  and 
Brady  had  made  away  with  the  county  funds. 
That  was  never  proved,  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
no  county  books  were  ever  kept!  McSween 
started  the  first  set  ever  known  there. 

At  this  time  there  was  working  for  Tunstall 
on  the  Feliz  ranch  the  noted  desperado,  Billy 
the  Kid,  who  a  short  time  formerly  had  worked 
for  John  Chisum.  The  latter  at  this  stage  of 


208  The  Story  of 

the  advancing  troubles,  appears  rather  as  a  third 
party,  or  as  holding  one  point  of  a  triangle, 
whose  other  two  corners  were  occupied  by  the 
Murphy  and  McSween  factions. 

Whether  or  not  it  was  a  legal  posse  which 
went  out  to  serve  the  attachment  on  the  Tun- 
stall  cattle — or  whether  or  not  a  posse  was 
necessary  for  that  purpose — the  truth  is  that  a 
band  of  men,  on  February  I3th,  1878,  did  go 
out  under  some  semblance  of  the  law  and  in  the 
interests  of  the  Murphy  people's  claim.  Some 
state  that  William  S.  Morton,  or  "Billy"  Mor- 
ton, was  chosen  by  Sheriff  Brady  as  his  deputy 
and  as  leader  of  this  posse.  Others  name  dif- 
ferent men  as  leaders.  Certainly,  the  band  was 
suited  for  any  desperate  occasion.  With  it  was 
one  Tom  Hill,  who  had  killed  several  men  at 
different  times,  and  who  had  been  heard  to  say 
that  he  intended  to  kill  Tunstall.  There  was 
also  Jesse  Evans,  just  in  from  the  Rio  Grande 
country,  and,  unless  that  were  Billy  the  Kid, 
the  most  redoubtable  fighter  in  all  that  country. 
Evans  had  formerly  worked  for  John  Chisum, 
and  had  been  the  friend  of  Billy  the  Kid;  but 
these  two  had  now  become  enemies.  Others  of 
the  party  were  William  M.  Johnson,  Ham 
Mills,  Johnnie  Hurley,  Frank  Baker,  several 


The  Outlaw  209 

ranchers  still  living  in  that  country,  and  two  or 
three  Mexicans.  All  these  rode  across  the 
mountains  to  the  Ruidoso  valley  on  their  way 
to  the  Rio  Feliz.  They  met,  coming  from  the 
Tunstall  ranch,  Tunstall  himself  in  company 
with  his  foreman,  Dick  Brewer,  John  Middle- 
ton  and  Billy  the  Kid.  When  the  Murphy 
posse  came  up  with  Tunstall,  he  was  alone.  His 
men  were  at  the  time  chasing  a  flock  of  wild 
turkeys  along  a  distant  hillside.  When  called 
upon  to  halt,  Tunstall  did  so,  and  then  came  up 
toward  the  posse.  "You  wouldn't  hurt  me,  boys, 
would  you?"  he  said,  as  he  approached  lead- 
ing his  horse.  When  within  a  few  yards,  Tom 
Hill  said  to  him,  "Why,  hello,  Tunstall,  is  that 
you?"  and  almost  with  the  words  fired  upon  him 
with  his  six-shooter  and  shot  him  down.  Some 
say  that  Hill  shot  Tunstall  again,  and  a  young 
Mexican  boy  called  Pantilon  beat  in  his  skull 
with  a  rock.  They  put  Tunstall's  hat  under  his 
head  and  left  him  lying  there  beside  his  horse, 
which  was  also  killed.  His  folded  coat  was 
found  under  the  horse's  head.  His  body,  lashed 
on  a  burro's  back,  was  brought  over  the  moun- 
tains by  his  friends  that  night  into  Lincoln, 
twenty  miles  distant.  Fifty  men  took  up  the 
McSween  fight  that  night;  for,  in  truth,  the  kill- 


21  o  The  Story  of 

ing  of  Tunstall  was  murder  and  without  justifi- 
cation. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  the  actual  Lincoln 
County  War.  Dick  Brewer,  TunstalPs  fore- 
man, was  now  leader  of  the  McSween  fighting 
men.  McSween,  of  course,  supplied  him  with 
color  of  "legal"  authority.  He  was  appointed 
"special  constable."  Neither  party  had  diffi- 
culty in  obtaining  all  the  legal  papers  required. 
Each  party  was  presently  to  have  a  sheriff  of  its 
own.  Meantime,  there  was  at  Lincoln  an  accom- 
modating justice  of  the  peace,  John  P.  Wilson, 
who  was  ready  to  give  either  faction  any  sort 
of  legal  paper  it  demanded.  Dick  Brewer, 
Billy  the  Kid,  and  nearly  a  dozen  others  of  the 
first  McSween  posse  started  to  the  lower 
country,  where  lived  a  good  many  of  Murphy's 
friends,  small  cow  men  and  others.  On  the  Rio 
Pefiasco,  about  six  miles  from  the  Pecos,  they 
came  across  a  party  of  five  men,  two  of  whom, 
Billy  Morton  and  Frank  Baker,  had  been  pres- 
ent at  the  killing  of  Tunstall.  Baker  and  Mor- 
ton surrendered  under  promise  of  safekeeping, 
and  were  held  for  a  time  at  Roswell.  On  the 
trail  from  Roswell  to  Lincoln,  at  a  point  near 
the  Agua  Negra,  both  these  men,  while  kneel- 
ing and  pleading  for  their  lives,  were  de- 


The  Outlaw  2 1 1 

liberately  shot  and  killed  by  Billy  the  Kid. 
There  was  with  the  Brewer  posse  a  buffalo-hun- 
ter by  the  name  of  McClosky,  who  had  prom- 
ised to  take  care  of  these  prisoners.  Joe  Mc- 
Nab,  of  the  posse,  shot  and  killed  McClosky  in 
cold  blood.  In  this  McSween  posse  were  "Doc" 
Skurlock,  Charlie  Bowdre,  Billy  the  Kid,  Hen- 
dry  Brown,  Jim  French,  John  Middleton,  with 
McNab,  Wait  and  Smith,  besides  McClosky, 
who  seems  not  to  have  been  loyal  enough  to 
them  to  sanction  cold  blooded  murder.  These 
victims  were  killed  March  yth,  1878. 

There  had  now  been  deliberate  murder  com- 
mitted upon  the  one  side  and  upon  the  other. 
There  were  many  men  implicated  on  each  side. 
These  men,  in  self-interest,  now  drew  apart  to- 
gether. The  factions,  of  necessity,  became 
more  firmly  established.  It  may  be  seen  that 
there  was  very  little  principle  at  stake  on  either 
side.  The  country  was  now  simply  going  wild 
again.  It  meant  to  take  the  law  into  its  own 
hands;  and  the  population  was  divided  into 
these  two  factions,  to  one  or  the  other  of  which 
every  resident  must  perforce  belong.  A  choice, 
and  sometimes  a  quick  one,  was  an  imperative 
necessity. 

The  next  killing  was  that  of  Buckshot  Rob- 


212  The  Story  of 

erts,  at  Blazer's  Mill,  near  the  Mescalero  Res- 
ervation buildings,  an  affair  described  in  a  later 
chapter.  Thirteen  men,  later  of  the  Kid's 
gang,  led  by  Dick  Brewer,  attacked  Roberts, 
who  killed  Dick  Brewer  before  he  himself  died. 
The  death  of  the  latter  left  the  Kid  chief  of  the 
McSween  forces. 

A  great  blood  lust  now  possessed  all  the  popu- 
lation. It  wanted  no  law.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  the  intention  to  make  away  with  Judge 
Warren  Bristol  of  the  circuit  court.  The  lat- 
ter, knowing  of  these  turbulent  times  in  Lincoln, 
decided  not  to  hold  court.  He  sent  word  to 
Sheriff  William  Brady  to  open  court  and  then 
at  once  to  adjourn  it.  This  was  on  April  i, 
1878. 

Sheriff  Brady,  in  walking  down  the  street 
toward  the  dwelling-house  in  which  court  ses- 
sions were  then  held,  was  obliged  to  pass  the 
McSween  store  and  residence.  Behind  the  cor- 
ral wall,  there  lay  ambushed  Billy  the  Kid  and 
at  least  five  others  of  his  gang.  Brady  was  ac- 
companied by  Billy  Matthews  ( J.  B.  Matthews, 
now  dead;  postmaster  of  Roswell,  New 
Mexico,  in  1904),  by  George  Hindman,  his 
deputy,  and  Dad  Peppin,  later  sheriff  of  Lin- 
coln county.  The  Kid  and  his  men  waited  until 


The  Outlaw  213 

the  victims  had  gone  by.  Then  a  volley  was  fired. 
Sheriff  Brady,  shot  in  the  back,  slowly  sank 
down,  his  knees  weakening  under  him.  "My 
God!  My  God!  My  God!"  he  exclaimed,  as 
he  gradually  dropped.  He  had  been  struck  in 
the  back  by  five  balls.  As  he  sank  down,  he 
turned  his  head  to  see  his  murderers,  and  as  he 
did  so  received  a  ball  in  the  eye,  and  so  fell 
dead.  George  Hindman,  the  deputy,  also  shot 
in  the  back,  ran  down  the  street  about  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  yards  before  he  fell.  He  lay  in 
the  street  and  few  dared  to  go  out  to  him.  A 
saloon-keeper,  Ike  Stockton  (himself  a  bad 
man,  and  later  killed  at  Durango,  Colorado), 
offered  him  a  drink  of  water,  which  he  brought 
in  his  hat,  and  Hindman,  accepting  it,  fell  back 
dead. 

The  murder  of  Sheriff  Brady  left  the  country 
without  even  the  semblance  of  law;  but  each 
party  now  took  steps  to  set  up  a  legal  machinery 
of  its  own,  as  cover  for  its  own  acts.  The  old 
justice  of  the  peace,  John  P.  Wilson,  would 
issue  a  warrant  on  any  pretext  for  any  person; 
but  there  must  be  some  one  with  authority  to 
serve  the  process.  In  a  quasi-election,  the  Mc- 
Sween  faction  instituted  John  Copeland  as  their 
sheriff.  The  Murphy  faction  held  that  Cope- 


214  The  Story  of 

land  never  qualified  as  sheriff.  He  lived  with 
McSween  part  of  the  time.  It  was  understood 
that  he  was  sheriff  for  the  purpose  of  bothering 
nobody  but  the  Murphy  people. 

Meantime,  the  other  party  were  not  thus  to 
be  surpassed.  In  June,  1878,  Governor  Axtell 
appointed  George  W.  Peppin  as  sheriff  of  Lin- 
coln county.  Peppin  qualified  at  Mesilla,  came 
back  to  Lincoln,  and  demanded  of  Copeland 
the  warrants  in  his  possession.  He  had,  on  his 
part,  twelve  warrants  for  the  arrest  of  mem- 
bers of  the  McSween  gang.  Little  lacked  now 
to  add  confusion  in  this  bloody  coil.  The  coun- 
try was  split  into  two  factions.  Each  had  a 
sheriff  as  a  figurehead!  What  and  where  was 
the  law? 

Peppin  had  to  get  fighting  men  to  serve  his 
warrants,  and  he  could  not  always  be  particular 
about  the  social  standing  of  his  posses.  He  had 
a  thankless  and  dangerous  position  as  the  "Mur- 
phy sheriff."  Most  of  his  posses  were  recruited 
from  among  the  small  ranchers  and  cow  boys  of 
the  lower  Pecos.  Peppin  was  sheriff  only  a  few 
months,  and  threw  up  the  job  $2,800  in  debt. 

The  men  of  both  parties  were  now  scouting 
about  for  each  other  here  and  there  over  a  dis- 
trict more  than  a  hundred  miles  square;  but 


The   Outlaw  215 

presently  the  war  was  to  take  on  the  dignity 
of  a  pitched  battle.  Early  in  July,  1878,  the 
Kid  and  his  gang  rounded  up  at  the  McSween 
house.  There  were  a  dozen  white  desperadoes 
in  their  party.  There  were  about  forty  Mexi- 
cans also  identified  with  the  McSween  faction. 
These  were  quartered  in  the  Montana  and  Ellis 
residences,  well  down  the  street. 

The  Murphy  forces  now  surrounded  the  Mc- 
Sween house,  and  at  once  a  pitched  battle  began. 
The  McSween  men  started  the  firing  from  the 
windows  and  loopholes  of  their  fortress.  The 
Peppin  men  replied.  The  town,  divided 
against  itself,  held  under  cover.  For  three  days 
the  two  little  armies  lay  here,  separated  by  the 
distance  of  the  street,  perhaps  sixty  men  in  all 
on  the  McSween  side,  perhaps  thirty  or  forty 
in  all  on  the  Murphy-Peppin  side,  of  whom 
nineteen  were  Americans. 

To  keep  the  McSween  men  inside  their  forti- 
fications, Peppin  had  three  men  posted  on  the 
mountain  side,  whence  they  could  look  down 
directly  upon  the  top  of  the  houses,  as  the  moun- 
tain here  rises  up  sharply  back  of  the  narrow 
line  of  adobe  buildings.  These  pickets  were 
Charlie  Crawford,  Lucillo  Montoye,  and  an- 
other Mexican,  and  with  their  long-range  buf- 


216  The  Story  of 

falo  guns  they  threw  a  good  many  heavy  slugs 
of  lead  into  the  McSween  house.  At  last,  one 
Fernando  Herrera,  a  McSween  Mexican, 
standing  in  the  back  door  of  the  Montana 
house,  fired,  at  a  distance  of  about  nine  hun- 
dred yards,  at  Charlie  Crawford.  The  shot 
cut  Crawford  down,  and  he  lay,  with  his  back 
broken,  behind  a  rock  on  the  mountain  side  in 
the  hot  sun  nearly  all  day.  Crawford  was  later 
brought  down  to  the  street.  Medical  attend- 
ance there  was  none,  and  few  dared  to  offer 
sympathy,  but  Captain  Saturnino  Baca*  carried 
Crawford  a  drink  of  water. 

The  death  of  Crawford  ended  the  second 
day's  fighting.  Peppin's  party  now  numbered 
sixteen  men  from  the  Seven  Rivers  country,  or 

*  Captain  Saturnino  Baca  was  a  friend  of  Kit  Carson,  an  officer  in  the  New 
Mexican  Volunteers,  and  the  second  commanding  officer  of  Fort  Stanton. 
He  came  to  Lincoln  in  1865,  and  purchased  of  J.  Trujillo  the  old  stone 
tower,  as  part  of  what  was  then  the  Baca  property,  near  the  McSween 
residence.  The  Bacas  were  recognized  as  non-combatants,  but  were  friendly 
to  Major  Murphy.  Mrs.  McSween  and  Mrs.  Baca  were  bitter  enemies, 
and  it  was  commonly  said  that,  as  each  side  had  a  sheriff*,  each  side  had  a 
woman.  Bonifacio  J.  Baca,  son  of  Captain  and  Mrs.  Baca,  was  a  protege 
of  Major  Murphy,  who  sent  him  to  Notre  Dame  University,  Indiana,  to  be 
educated.  "Bonnie"  Baca  was  at  different  times  clerk  of  the  probate 
court,  county  assessor,  deputy  sheriff,  etc. ,  and  was  court  interpreter  under 
Judge  Warren  H.  Bristol.  He  was  teaching  school  at  the  time  Sheriff 
Brady  was  shot,  and  from  his  refuge  in  the  "round  tower,"  a  few  feet 
distant,  saw  Brady  fall.  Captain  Baca,  wife  and  son,  were  after  that  closely 
watched  by  the  men  of  the  McSween  faction,  but  managed  to  remain 
neutral  and  never  became  involved  in  the  fighting,  though  Billy  the  Kid 
more  than  once  threatened  to  kill  young  Baca. 


The  Outlaw  217 

twenty-eight  in  all.  The  McSween  men  be- 
sieged in  the  adobe  were  Billy  the  Kid,  Harvey 
Norris  (killed),  Tom  O'Folliard,  Ighenio  Sala- 
zar  (wounded  and  left  for  dead) ,  Ignacio  Gon- 
zales,  Jose  Semora  (killed),  Francisco  Romero 
(killed),  and  Alexander  A.  McSween,  leader 
of  the  faction  (killed).  Doc  Skurlock,  Jack 
Middleton,  and  Charlie  Bowdre  were  in  the 
adjoining  store  building. 

At  about  noon  of  the  third  day,  old  Andy 
Boyle,  ex-soldier  of  the  British  army,  said, 
"We'll  have  to  get  a  cannon  and  blow  in  the 
doors.  I'll  go  up  to  the  fort  and  steal  a  can- 
non." Half-way  up  to  the  fort,  he  found  his 
cannon — two  Catling  guns  and  a  troop  of 
colored  cavalry — already  on  the  road  to  stop 
what  had  been  reported  as  firing  on  women  and 
children.  The  detachment  was  under  charge  of 
the  commanding  officer  of  Fort  Stanton,  Colo- 
nel Dudley,  who  marched  his  men  past  the  be- 
leagured  house  and  drew  them  up  below  the 
place.  Colonel  Dudley  was  besought  by  Mrs. 
McSween,  who  came  out  under  fire,  to  save  her 
husband's  life;  but  he  refused  to  interfere  or 
take  side  in  the  matter,  saying  that  the  sheriff 
of  the  county  was  there  and  in  charge  of  his 
own  posse.  Mrs.  McSween  refused  to  accept 


2i 8  The  Story  of 

protection  and  go  up  to  the  post,  but  returned 
to  her  husband  for  what  she  knew  must  soon  be 
the  end. 

McSween,  ex-minister,  lawyer,  honest  or  dis- 
honest instigator,  innocent  or  malicious  cause — 
and  one  may  choose  his  adjectives  in  this  mat- 
ter— of  all  these  bloody  scenes,  now  sat  in  the 
house,  his  head  bowed  in  his  hands,  the  picture 
of  foreboding  despair.  His  nerve  was  abso- 
lutely gone.  No  one  paid  any  attention  to  him. 
His  wife,  the  actual  leader,  was  far  braver  than 
he.  The  Kid  was  the  commander.  "They'd 
kill  us  all  if  we  surrendered,"  he  said.  "We'll 
shoot  it  out  I" 

Old  Andy  Boyle  got  some  sticks  and  some 
coal  oil,  and,  under  protection  of  rifles,  started 
a  fire  against  a  street  door  of  the  house.  Jack 
Long  and  two  others  also  fired  the  house  in  the 
rear.  A  keg  of  powder  had  been  concealed 
under  the  floor.  The  flames  reached  this  pow- 
der, and  there  was  an  explosion  which  did  more 
than  anything  else  toward  ending  the  siege. 

At  about  dusk,  Bob  Beckwith,  old  man 
Pierce,  and  one  other  man,  ran  around  toward 
the  rear  of  the  house.  Beckwith  called  out  to 
the  inmates  to  surrender.  They  demanded  that 
the  sheriff  come  for  a  parley.  "I'm  a  deputy 


The  Outlaw  219 

sheriff,"  replied  Beckwith.  It  was  dark  or 
nearly  so.  Several  figures  burst  out  of  the  rear 
door  of  the  burning  house,  among  these  the  un- 
fortunate McSween.  Around  him,  and  ahead 
of  him,  ran  Billy  the  Kid,  Skurlock,  French, 
O'Folliard,  Bowdre,  and  a  few  others.  The 
flashing  of  six-shooters  at  close  range  ended 
the  three  days'  battle.  McSween,  still  unarmed, 
dropped  dead.  He  was  found,  half  sitting, 
leaning  against  the  corral  wall.  Bob  Beckwith, 
of  the  Peppin  forces,  fell  almost  at  the  same 
time,  killed  by  Billy  the  Kid.  Near  McSween's 
body  lay  those  of  Romero  and  Semora  and  of 
Harvey  Norris.  The  latter  was  a  young  Kan- 
san,  newly  arrived  in  that  country,  of  whom 
little  was  known. 

With  the  McSween  party,  there  was  one 
game  Mexican,  Ighenio  Salazar,  who  is  alive 
to-day,  by  miracle.  In  the  rush  from  the  house, 
Salazar  was  shot  down,  being  struck  by  two  bul- 
lets. He  feigned  death.  Old  Andy  Boyle 
stood  over  him  with  his  gun  cocked.  "I  guess 
he's  dead,"  said  Andy.  "If  I  thought  he 
wasn't,  I  shoot  him  some  more."  They  then 
jumped  on  Salazar's  body  to  assure  themselves. 
In  the  darkness,  Salazar  rolled  over  into  a  ditch, 
later  made  his  escape,  stopped  his  wounds  with 


220  The  Story  of 

.some  corn  husks,  and  found  concealment  in 
a  Mexican  house  until  he  subsequently  re- 
covered. 

This  fight  cost  McSween  his  life  just  at  the 
point  when  he  thought  he  had  attained  success. 
Four  days  before  he  was  killed,  he  had  word 
from  the  United  States  Government's  commis- 
sioner, Angell,  that  the  President  had  deposed 
Governor  Axtell  of  New  Mexico,  on  account 
of  his  appointment  of  Dad  Peppin  as  sheriff, 
and  on  charges  that  Axtell  was  favoring  the 
Murphy  faction.  General  Lew  Wallace  was 
now  sent  out  as  Governor  of  New  Mexico,  in- 
vested with  "extraordinary  powers."  He 
needed  them.  President  Hayes  had  issued 
governmental  proclamation  calling  upon  these 
desperate  fighting  men  to  lay  down  their  arms, 
but  it  was  not  certain  they  would  easily  be  per- 
suaded. It  was  a  long  way  to  Washington,  and 
a  short  way  to  a  six-shooter. 

General  Wallace  assured  Mrs.  McSween  of 
protection,  but  he  found  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  getting  to  the  bottom  of  the  Lincoln 
County  War.  It  would  have  been  necessary  to 
hang  the  entire  population  of  the  county  to  ex- 
ecute a  formal  justice.  Almost  none  of  the  in- 
dictments "stuck,"  and  one  by  one  the  cases 


The  Outlaw  221 

were  dismissed.    The  thing  was  too  big  for  the 
law. 

The  only  man  ever  actually  indicted  and 
brought  to  trial  for  a  killing  during  the  Lin- 
coln County  War  was  Billy  the  Kid,  and  there 
is  many  a  resident  of  Lincoln  to-day  who  de- 
clares that  the  Kid  was  made  a  scapegoat;  and 
many  a  man  even  to-day  charges  Governor 
Wallace  with  bad  faith.  Governor  Wallace 
met  the  Kid  by  appointment  at  the  Ellis  House 
in  Lincoln.  The  Kid  came  in  fully  armed,  and 
the  old  soldier  was  surprised  to  see  in  him  a 
bright-faced  and  pleasant-talking  boy.  In  the 
presence  of  two  witnesses  now  living,  Governor 
Wallace  asked  the  Kid  to  come  in  and  lay  down 
his  arms,  and  promised  to  pardon  him  if  he 
would  stand  his  trial  and  if  he  should  be  con- 
victed in  the  courts.  The  Kid  declined. 
"There  is  no  justice  for  me  in  the  courts  of  this 
country  now,"  said  he.  "I've  gone  too  far." 
And  so  he  went  back  with  his  little  gang  of 
outlaws,  to  meet  a  dramatic  end,  after  further 
incidents  in  a  singular  and  blood-stained  career. 

The  Lincoln  County  War  now  spread  wider 
than  even  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States. 
A  United  States  deputy,  Wiederman,  had  been 
employed  by  the  father  of  the  murdered  J.  H. 


222  The  Story  of 

Tunstall  to  take  care  of  the  Tunstall  estates 
and  to  secure  some  kind  of  British  revenge  for 
his  murder.  Wiederman  falsely  persuaded  Tun- 
stall pere  that  he  had  helped  kill  Frank  Baker 
and  Billy  Morton,  and  Tunstall  pere  made  him 
rich,  Wiederman  going  to  England,  where  it 
was  safer.  The  British  legation  took  up  the 
matter  of  Tunstall's  death,  and  the  slow-mov- 
ing governmental  wheels  at  Washington  began 
to  revolve.  A  United  States  indemnity  was 
paid  for  Tunstall's  life. 

Mrs.  McSween,  meantime,  kept  up  her  work 
in  the  local  courts.  Some  time  after  her  hus- 
band's death,  she  employed  a  lawyer  by  the 
name  of  Chapman,  of  Las  Vegas,  a  one-armed 
man,  to  undertake  the  dangerous  task  of  aiding 
her  in  her  work  of  revenge.  By  this  time,  most 
of  the  fighters  were  disposed  to  lay  down  their 
arms.  The  whole  society  of  the  country  had 
been  ruined  by  the  war.  Murphy  ,&  Co. 
had  long  ago  mortgaged  everything  they  had, 
and  a  good  many  things  which  they  did  not 
have,  e.  g.y  some  of  John  Chisum's  cattle,  to 
Tom  Catron,  of  Sante  Fe.  A  big  peace  talk 
was  made  in  the  town,  and  it  was  agreed  that, 
as  there  was  no  longer  any  advantage  of  a  finan- 
cial nature  in  keeping  up  the  war,  all  parties 


The   Outlaw  223 

concerned  might  as  well  quit  organized  fight- 
ing, and  engage  in  individual  pillage  instead. 
Murphy  &  Co.  were  ruined.  Murphy  and  Mc- 
Sween  were  both  dead.  Chisum  could  be  de- 
pended upon  to  pay  some  of  the  debts  to  the 
warriors  through  stolen  cattle,  if  not  through 
signed  checks.  Why,  then,  should  good,  game 
men  go  on  killing  each  other  for  nothing  ?  This 
was  the  argument  used. 

In  this  conference  there  were,  on  the  Mur- 
phy side,  Jesse  Evans,  Jimmie  Dolan  and  Bill 
Campbell.  On  the  other  side  were  Billy  the 
Kid,  Tom  O'Folliard  and  the  game  Mexican, 
Salazar.  Each  of  these  men  had  a  .45  Colt  at 
his  belt,  and  a  cocked  Winchester  in  his  hand. 
At  last,  however,  the  six  men  shook  hands. 
They  agreed  to  end  the  war.  Then,  frontier 
fashion,  they  set  off  for  the  nearest  saloon. 

The  Las  Vegas  lawyer,  Chapman,  happened 
to  cross  the  street  as  these  desperate  fighting 
men,  used  to  killing,  now  well  drunken,  came 
out,  all  armed,  and  all  swearing  friendship. 

"Halt,  you,  there!"  cried  Bill  Campbell  to 
Chapman;  and  the  latter  paused.  "Damn 
you,"  said  Campbell  to  Chapman;  "you  are 

the of  a that  has  come  down 

here  to  stir  up  trouble  among  us  fellows.  We're 


224  The  Story  of 

peaceful.  It's  all  settled,  and  we're  friends 
now.  Now,  damn  you,  just  to  show  you're 
peaceable  too,  you  dance." 

"I'm  a  gentleman,"  said  Chapman,  "and  I'll 
dance  for  no  ruffian."  An  instant  later,  shot 
through  the  heart  by  Campbell's  six-shooter, 
as  is  alleged,  he  lay  dead  in  the  roadway.  No 
one  dared  disturb  his  body.  He  was  shot  at 
such  close  range  that  some  papers  in  his  coat 
pocket  took  fire  from  the  powder  flash,  and  his 
body  was  partially  consumed  as  it  lay  there  in 
the  road. 

For  this  killing,  Jimmie  Dolan,  Billy  Mat- 
thews and  Bill  Campbell  were  indicted  and 
tried.  Dolan  and  Matthews  were  acquitted. 
Campbell,  in  default  of  a  better  jail,  was  kept 
in  the  guard-house  at  Fort  Stanton.  One  night 
he  disappeared,  in  company  with  his  guard  and 
some  United  States  cavalry  horses.  Since  then 
nothing  has  been  heard  of  him.  His  real  name 
was  not  Campbell,  but  Ed  Richardson. 

Billy  the  Kid  did  not  kill  John  Chisum, 
though  all  the  country  wondered  at  that  fact. 
There  was  a  story  that  he  forced  Chisum  to 
sign  a  bill  of  sale  for  eight  hundred  head  of 
cattle.  He  claimed  that  Chisum  owed  money 
to  the  McSween  fighting  men,  to  whom  he  had 


The  Outlaw  225 

promised  salaries  which  were  never  paid;  but 
no  evidence  exists  that  Chisum  ever  made  such 
a  promise,  although  he  sometimes  sent  a  wagon- 
load  of  supplies  to  the  McSween  fighting  men. 

John  Chisum  died  of  cancer  at  Eureka 
Springs,  Missouri,  December  26,  1884,  and  his 
great  holdings  as  a  cattle  king  afterward  be- 
came somewhat  involved.  He  could  once  have 
sold  out  for  $600,000,  but  later  mortgaged  his 
holdings  for  $250,000.  He  was  concerned  in 
a  packing  plant  at  Kansas  City,  a  business  into 
which  he  was  drawn  by  others,  and  of  which 
he  knew  nothing. 

Major  Murphy  died  at  Sante  Fe  before  the 
big  fight  at  Lincoln.  Jimmie  Dolan  died  a  few 
years  later,  and  lies  buried  in  the  little  grave- 
yard near  the  Fritz  ranch.  Riley,  the  other 
member  of  the  firm,  went  to  Colorado,  and  was 
last  heard  of  at  Rocky  Ford,  where  he  was 
prosperous.  The  heritage  of  hatred  was  about 
all  that  McSween  left  to  his  widow,  who  pres- 
ently married  George  L.  Barber,  at  Lincoln, 
and  later  proved  herself  to  be  a  good  business 
woman — good  enough  to  make  a  fortune  in  the 
cattle  business  from  the  four  hundred  head  of 
cattle  John  Chisum  gave  her  to  settle  a  debt 
he  had  owed  McSween.  She  afterward  estab- 


226  The  Story  of 

lished  a  fine  ranch  near  Three   Rivers,   New 
Mexico. 

Dad  Peppin,  known  as  the  "Murphy  sher- 
iff" by  the  McSween  faction,  lived  out  his  life 
on  his  little  holding  at  the  edge  of  Lincoln 
placita.  He  died  in  1905.  His  rival,  John 
Copeland,  died  in  1902.  The  street  of  Lin- 
coln, one  of  the  bloodiest  of  its  size  in  the 
world,  is  silent.  Another  generation  is  grow- 
ing up.  William  Brady,  Major  Brady's  eldest 
son,  and  Josefina  Brady-Chavez,  a  daughter, 
live  in  Lincoln;  and  Bob  Brady,  another  son  of 
the  murdered  sheriff,  was  long  jailer  at  Lincoln 
jail.  The  law  has  arisen  over  the  ruin  wrought 
by  lawlessness.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that, 
although  the  law  never  punished  the  partici- 
pants in  this  border  conflict,  the  lawlessness  was 
never  ended  by  any  vigilante  movement.  The 
fighting  was  so  desperate  and  prolonged  that  it 
came  to  be  held  as  warfare  and  not  as  murder. 
There  is  no  doubt  that,  barring  the  border  fight- 
ing of  Kansas  and  Missouri,  this  was  the  great- 
est of  American  border  wars. 


The  Outlaw  227 


Chapter  XV 

The  Stevens  County  War — The  Bloodiest 
County  Seat  War  of  the  West — The  Personal 
Narrative  of  a  Man  Who  Was  Shot  and  Left 
for  Dead — The  Most  Expensive  United  States 
Court  Case  Ever  Tried.  :  :  :  :  : 

IN  the  month  of  May,  1886,  the  writer  was 
one  of  a  party  of  buffalo-hunters  bound  for 
the  Neutral  Strip  and  the  Panhandle  of 
Texas,  where  a  small  number  of  buffalo  still  re- 
mained at  that  time.  We  traveled  across  the  en- 
tire southwestern  part  of  Kansas,  below  the 
Santa  Fe  railroad,  at  a  time  when  the  great 
land  boom  of  1886  and  1887  was  at  its  height. 
Town-site  schemes  in  western  Kansas  were  at 
that  time  innumerable,  and  a  steady  stream  of 
immigration  was  pouring  westward  by  rail  and 
wagon  into  the  high  and  dry  plains  of  the  coun- 
try, where  at  that  time  farming  remained  a 
doubtful  experiment.  In  the  course  of  our  trav- 


228  The  Story  of 

els,  we  saw  one  morning,  rising  before  us  in  the 
mirage  of  the  plains,  what  seemed  to  be  a  series 
of  crenelated  turrets,  castles  peaked  and  bas- 
tioned.  We  knew  this  was  but  the  mirage,  and 
knew  that  it  must  have  some  physical  cause. 
But  what  was  a  town  doing  in  that  part  of  the 
world  ?  We  drove  on  and  in  a  few  hours  found 
the  town — a  little,  raw  boom  town  of  un- 
painted  boards  and  tents,  which  had  sprung 
up  almost  overnight  in  that  far-off  region.  The 
population  was  that  of  the  typical  frontier  town, 
and  the  pronounced  belief  of  all  was  that  this 
settlement  was  to  be  the  commercial  metropolis 
of  the  Southwest.  This  little  town  was  later 
known  as  Woodsdale,  Kansas.  It  offered  then 
no  hint  of  the  bloody  scenes  in  which  it  was 
soon  to  figure;  but  within  a  few  weeks  it  was 
so  deeply  embroiled  in  war  with  the  rival  town 
of  Hugoton  as  to  make  history  notable  even 
on  that  turbulent  frontier. 

Mr.  Herbert  M.  Tonney,  now  a  prosperous 
citizen  of  Flora,  Illinois,  was  a  resident  of  that 
portion  of  the  country  in  the  stirring  days  of 
the  land  boom,  and  became  involved  to  an  ex- 
tent beyond  his  own  seeking  in  this  county  seat 
fight.  While  serving  as  an  officer  of  the  peace, 
he  was  shot  and  left  for  dead.  No  story  can 


The  Outlaw  229 

serve  so  well  as  his  personal  narrative  to  convey 
a  clear  idea  of  the  causes,  methods  and  results 
of  a  typical  county  seat  war  in  the  West.  His 
recountal  follows: 

"I  do  not  need  to  swear  to  the  truthfulness 
of  my  story,  for  I  have  already  done  so  in  many 
courts  and  under  the  cross-examination  of  some 
of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  the  country.  I  have 
repeated  the  story  on  the  stand  in  a  criminal 
case  which  cost  the  United  States  government 
more  money  than  it  has  ever  expended  in  any 
similar  trial,  unless  perhaps  that  having  to  do 
with  the  assassination  of  President  Lincoln.  I 
can  say  that  I  know  what  it  is  to  be  murdered. 

"In  March,  1886,  I  moved  out  into  south- 
western Kansas,  in  what  was  later  to  be  known 
as  Stevens  county,  then  a  remote  and  apparently 
unattractive  region.  In  1885  a  syndicate  of  citi- 
zens of  McPherson,  Kansas,  had  been  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  starting  a  new  town  in 
southwestern  Kansas.  The  members  were  lead- 
ing bankers,  lawyers,  and  merchants.  These 
sent  out  an  exploration  party,  among  which 
were  such  men  as  Colonel  C.  E.  Cook,  former 
postmaster  of  McPherson;  his  brother,  Orrin 
Cook,  a  lawyer;  John  Pancoast,  J.  B.  Chamber- 
lain, J.  W.  Calvert,  John  Robertson,  and 


230  The  Story  of 

others.  They  located  a  section  of  school  lands, 
in  what  was  later  known  as  Stevens  county,  as 
near  the  center  of  the  proposed  county  as  the 
range  of  sand  dunes  along  the  Cimarron  river 
would  permit.  Others  of  the  party  located 
lands  as  close  to  the  town  site  as  possible.  On 
August  3,  1886,  Governor  Martin  issued  a 
proclamation  for  the  organization  of  Stevens 
county.  It  appeared  upon  the  records  of  the 
State  of  Kansas  that  the  new  county  had  2,662 
bona-fide  inhabitants,  of  whom  868  were  house- 
holders. These  claimed  a  taxable  property,  in 
excess  of  legal  exemptions,  amounting  to  $313,- 
035,  including  railroad  property  of  $140,380. 
I  need  not  state  that  the  organization  was 
wholly  based  upon  fraud.  An  election  was 
called  for  September  9,  and  the  town  of  Hugo- 
ton — at  first  called  Hugo — was  chosen. 

"There  can  be  competition  in  the  town-site 
business,  however.  At  Mead  Center,  Kansas, 
there  resided  an  old-time  Kansas  man,  Colonel 
S.  N.  Wood,  who  also  wanted  a  town  site  in 
the  new  county.  Wood's  partner,  Captain  I. 
C.  Price,  went  down  on  July  3  to  look  over  the 
situation.  He  was  not  known  to  the  Hugoton 
men,  and  he  was  invited  by  Calvert,  the  census 
taker,  to  register  his  name  as  a  citizen.  He 


The  Outlaw  231 

protested  that  he  was  only  a  visitor,  but  was 
informed  that  this  made  no  possible  difference; 
whereupon,  Price  proceeded  to  register  his 
own  name,  that  of  his  partner,  those  of  many 
of  his  friends,  and  many  purely  imaginary 
persons.  He  also  registered  the  families  of 
these  persons,  and  finally — in  a  burst  of  good 
American  humor — went  so  far  as  to  credit  cer- 
tain single  men  of  his  acquaintance  with  large 
families,  including  twenty  or  thirty  pairs  of 
twins!  This  cheerful  imagination  on  his  part 
caused  trouble  afterwards;  but  certain  it  is  that 
these  fictitious  names,  twins  and  all,  went  into 
the  sworn  records  of  Hugoton — an  unborn 
population  of  a  defunct  town,  whose  own  con- 
ception was  in  iniquity! 

'Trice  located  a  section  of  government  land 
on  the  north  side  of  the  sand  hills,  eight  miles 
from  Hugoton,  and  this  was  duly  platted  for 
a  town  site.  Corner  lots  were  selling  at  Hugo- 
ton  for  $1,000  apiece,  and  people  were  flocking 
to  that  town.  The  new  town  was  called 
Woodsdale,  and  Colonel  Wood  offered  lots 
free  to  any  who  would  come  and  build  upon 
them.  Settlers  now  streamed  to  Woodsdale. 
Tents,  white-topped  wagons  and  frail  shanties 
sprung  up  as  though  by  magic.  The  Woods- 


232  The  Story  of 

dale  boom  attracted  even  homesteaders  who 
had  cast  in  their  lot  with  Hugoton.  Many  of 
these  forgot  their  oaths  in  the  land  office,  pulled 
up  and  filed  on  new  quarter  sections  nearer  to 
Woodsdale.  The  latter  town  was  jubilant. 
Colonel  Wood  and  Captain  Price,  in  the  month 
of  August,  held  a  big  ratification  meeting, 
taunting  the  men  of  Hugoton  with  those  thirty 
pairs  of  twins  that  never  were  on  land  or  sea. 
A  great  deal  of  bad  blood  was  engendered  at 
this  time. 

"Soon  after  this  Wood  and  Price  started  to- 
gether for  Garden  City.  They  were  followed 
by  a  band  of  Hugoton  men  and  captured  in  a 
dugout  on  the  Cimarron  river.  Brought  back 
to  Hugoton,  a  mock  trial  was  held  upon  them 
and  they  were  released  on  a  mock  bond,  being 
later  taken  out  of  town  under  guard.  A  report 
was  printed  in  the  Hugoton  paper  that  certain 
gentlemen  of  that  town  had  gone  south  with 
Colonel  Wood  and  Captain  Price,  'for  the  pur- 
pose of  a  friendly  buffalo  hunt.1  It  was  the  in- 
tention to  take  these  two  prisoners  into  the  wild 
and  lawless  region  of  No  Man's  Land,  or  the 
Panhandle  of  Texas,  there  to  kill  them,  and  to 
bring  back  the  report  that  they  were  accident- 
ally killed  in  the  buffalo  chase.  This  strange 


The  Outlaw  233 

hunting  party  did  go  south,  across  No  Man's 
Land  and  into  the  desert  region  lying  around 
the  headwaters  of  the  Beaver.  The  prisoners 
knew  what  they  were  to  expect,  but,  as  it 
chanced,  their  captors  did  not  dare  kill  them. 
Meantime,  Woodsdale  had  organized  a  'posse' 
of  twenty-four  men,  under  Captain  S.  O.  Au- 
brey, the  noted  frontier  trailer,  formerly  an 
Indian  scout.  This  band,  taking  up  the  trail 
below  Hugoton,  followed  and  rescued  Wood 
and  Price,  and  took  prisoners  the  entire  Hugo- 
ton  'posse.'  The  latter  were  taken  to  Garden 
City,  and  here  the  law  was  in  turn  set  at  defi- 
ance by  the  Woodsdale  men,  the  horses, 
wagons,  arms,  etc.,  of  the  Hugoton  party  being 
put  up  and  sold  in  the  court  to  pay  the  board 
of  the  teams,  expenses  of  publication,  etc. 
Colonel  Wood  bought  these  effects  in  at  public 
auction. 

uBy  this  time,  Stevens  county  had  been  or- 
ganized and  the  Hugoton  'pull'  was  in  the  as- 
cendency. A  continuance  had  been  taken  at 
Garden  City  by  the  Hugoton  prisoners,  who 
were  charged  with  kidnapping.  The  papers  in 
this  case  were  sent  down  from  Finney  county 
to  the  first  session  of  the  District  Court  of 
Stevens  county.  The  result  was  foregone. 


234  The  Story  of 

Tried  by  their  friends,  the  prisoners  were 
promptly  discharged. 

"The  feeling  between  the  two  towns  was  all 
the  time  growing  more  bitter.  Cases  had  been 
brought  against  Calvert,  the  census-taker,  for 
perjury,  and  action  was  taken  looking  toward 
the  setting  aside  of  the  organization  of  the 
county.  The  Kansas  legislature,  however,  now 
met,  and  the  political  'pull'  of  Hugoton  was  still 
strong  enough  to  secure  a  special  act  legalizing 
the  organization  of  Stevens  county.  It  was 
now  the  legislature  against  the  Supreme  Court; 
for  a  little  later  the  Supreme  Court  declared 
that  the  organization  had  been  made  through 
open  fraud  and  by  means  of  perjury. 

"Naturally,  trouble  might  have  been  ex- 
pected at  the  fall  election.  There  were  two 
centers  of  population,  two  sets  of  leaders,  two 
clans,  separated  by  only  eight  miles  of  sand 
hills.  There  could  be  but  one  county  seat  and 
one  set  of  officers.  Here  Woodsdale  began  to 
suffer,  for  her  forces  were  divided  among 
themselves. 

"Colonel  Wood,  the  leader  of  this  commun- 
ity, had  slated  John  M.  Cross  as  his  candidate 
for  sheriff.  A  rival  for  the  nomination  was 
Sam  Robinson,  who  owned  the  hotel  at  Woods- 


The  Outlaw  235 

dale,  and  had  invested  considerable  money 
there.  Robinson  was  about  forty  years  of  age, 
and  was  known  to  be  a  bad  man,  credited  with 
two  or  three  killings  elsewhere.  Wood  had 
always  been  able  to  flatter  him  and  handle  him ; 
but  when  Cross  was  declared  as  the  nominee  for 
sheriff,  Robinson  became  so  embittered  that  he 
moved  over  to  Hugoton,  where  he  was  later 
chosen  town  marshal  and  township  constable. 
Hugoton  men  bought  his  hotel,  leaving  Robin- 
son in  the  position  of  holding  real  estate  in 
Woodsdale  without  owning  the  improvements 
on  it.  Hence  when  the  town-site  commission- 
ers began  to  issue  deeds,  Robinson  was  debarred 
from  claiming  a  deed  by  reason  of  the  hotel 
property  having  been  sold.  Bert  Nobel,  a 
friend  of  Robinson's,  sold  his  drug  store  and 
moved  over  with  Robinson  to  Hugoton.  Hugo- 
ton  bought  other  property  of  Woodsdale  mal- 
contents, leaving  the  buildings  standing  at 
Woodsdale  and  taking  the  citizens  to  them- 
selves. The  Hugoton  men  put  up  as  their  can- 
didate one  Dalton,  and  declared  him  elected. 
Wood  contested  the  election,  and  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  his  man  Cross  declared  as 
sheriff  of  Stevens  county. 

"It  was  now  proposed  to  issue  bonds  for  a 


236  The  Story  of 

double  line  of  railroad  across  this  county,  such 
bonds  amounting  to  eight  thousand  dollars  per 
mile.  At  this  time,  the  population  was  largely 
one  of  adventurers,  and  there  was  hardly  a  foot 
of  deeded  land  in  the  entire  county.  In  the  dis- 
cussion over  this  bond  election,  Robinson  got 
into  trouble  with  the  new  sheriff,  in  which  Rob- 
inson was  clearly  in  the  wrong,  as  he  had  no 
county  jurisdiction,  being  at  the  time  of  the 
altercation  outside  of  his  own  township  and 
town.  Later  on,  a  warrant  for  Robinson's 
arrest  was  issued  and  placed  in  the  hands  of 
Ed  Short,  town  marshal  of  Woodsdale.  Short 
was  known  as  a  killer,  and  hence  as  a  fit  man 
to  go  after  Robinson.*  He  went  to  Hugoton 
to  arrest  Robinson,  and  there  was  a  shooting 
affair,  in  which  the  citizens  of  Hugoton  pro- 
tected their  man.  The  Woodsdale  town  mar- 
shal, however,  still  retained  his  warrant  and 
cherished  his  purpose  of  arresting  his  man. 

*  This  man,  Ed.  Short,  later  came  to  a  tragic  end.  A  man  of  courage, 
as  has  been  intimated,  he  had  assisted  in  the  capture  of  a  member  of  the 
famous  Dalton  gang,  one  Dave  Bryant,  who  had  robbed  a  Rock  Island 
express  train,  and  was  taking  him  to  Wichita,  Kansas,  to  jail.  On  the 
way  Short  had  occasion  to  go  into  the  smoker  of  the  train,  leaving  the 
prisoner  in  charge  of  the  express  messenger,  whom  Short  had  furnished  with 
a  revolver.  By  some  means  Bryant  became  possessed  of  this  revolver,  held 
up  the  messenger,  and  was  in  the  act  of  jumping  from  the  swiftly  moving 
train,  when  Short  came  out  of  the  smoker.  Catching  sight  of  Short, 
Bryant  fired  and  struck  him,  Short  returning  the  fire,  and  both  falling  from 
the  train  together,  dead. 


The  Outlaw  237 

"On  July  22  of  this  year,  1888,  Short  learned 
that  Sam  Robinson,  the  two  Cooks,  and  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Donald,  together  with  some 
women  and  children,  had  gone  on  a  picnic  down 
in  the  Neutral  Strip,  south  of  the  Stevens 
county  line.  Short  raised  a  'posse'  of  four  or 
five  men  and  started  after  Robinson,  who  was 
surprised  in  camp  near  Goff  creek.  There  was 
a  parley,  which  resulted  in  Robinson  escaping 
on  a  fast  horse,  which  was  tied  near  the  shack 
where  he  was  stopping  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren. Short,  meantime,  had  sent  back  word  to 
Woodsdale,  stating  that  he  needed  help  to  take 
Robinson.  Meantime,  also,  the  Hugoton  men, 
learning  that  Short  had  started  down  after 
Robinson,  had  sent  out  two  strong  parties  to 
rescue  the  latter.  A  battle  was  imminent. 

"It  was  at  this  time  that  I  myself  appeared 
upon  the  scene  of  this  turbulent  and  lawless 
drama,  although,  in  my  own  case,  I  went  as  a 
somewhat  unwilling  participant  and  as  a  servant 
of  the  law,  not  anticipating  consequences  so 
grave  as  those  which  followed. 

"The  sheriff  of  the  county,  John  M.  Cross, 
on  receiving  the  message  from  Short,  called  for 
volunteers,  which  was  equivalent  to  summoning 
a  'posse/  He  knew  there  was  going  to  be 


238  The  Story  of 

trouble,  and  left  his  money  and  watch  behind 
him,  stating  that  he  feared  for  the  result  of  his 
errand.  His  'posse'  was  made  up  of  Ted 
Eaton,  Bob  Hubbard,  Holland  Wilcox,  and 
myself.  At  that  time  I  was  only  a  boy,  about 
nineteen  years  of  age. 

"We  had  a  long  and  hard  ride  to  Reed's 
camp,  on  Goff  creek,  whence  Short  had  sent  up 
his  message.  Arriving  there,  we  found  Reed, 
who  was  catching  wild  horses,  together  with  a 
man  by  the  name  of  Patterson  and  another  man, 
but  Short  was  not  in  sight.  From  Reed  we 
learned  that  Robinson  had  gotten  away  from 
Short,  who  had  parted  back,  leaving  word  for 
Mr.  Cross,  should  he  arrive,  to  return  home. 
A  band  of  men  from  Hugoton,  we  learned 
later,  had  overtaken  Short  and  his  men  and 
chased  them  for  twenty-five  miles,  but  the  lat- 
ter reached  Springfield,  Seward  county,  un- 
harmed. 

"Robinson,  who  had  made  his  escape  to  a 
cow  camp  and  thence  to  Hugoton  upon  a  fresh 
horse,  now  met  and  led  down  into  the  Strip 
one  of  the  first  Hugoton  'posses.'  Among  them 
were  Orrin  Cook,  Charles  Cook,  J.  W.  Cal- 
vert,  J.  B.  Chamberlain,  John  Jackson,  John 
A.  Rutter,  Fred  Brewer,  William  Clark,  and  a 


The  Outlaw  239 

few  others.  Robinson  was,  of  course,  the 
leader  of  this  band. 

"After  Sheriff  Cross  asked  me  to  go  down 
with  him  to  see  what  had  become  of  Ed  Short, 
I  went  over  and  got  Wilcox  and  we  rode  down 
to  the  settlement  of  Voorhees.  Thence  we  rode 
to  Goff  creek,  and  all  reached  Reed's  camp 
about  seven  or  eight  o'clock  on  Wednesday 
morning,  July  25,  1888.  Here  we  remained 
until  about  five  o'clock  of  that  afternoon,  when 
we  started  for  home.  Our  horses  gave  out,  and 
we  got  off  and  led  them  until  well  on  into  the 
night. 

uAt  about  moonrise,  we  came  to  a  place  in 
the  Neutral  Strip  known  as  the  'Hay  Mead- 
ows,' where  there  was  a  sort  of  pool  of  standing 
water,  at  which  settlers  cut  a  kind  of  coarse  hay. 
There  was  in  camp  there,  making  hay,  an  old 
man  by  the  name  of  A.  B.  Haas,  of  Voorhees, 
and  with  him  were  his  sons,  C.  and  Keen  Haas, 
as  well  as  Dave  Scott,  a  Hugoton  partisan. 
When  we  met  these  people  here,  we  concluded 
to  stop  for  a  while.  Eaton  and  Wilcox  got 
into  the  wagon-box  and  lay  down.  My  horse 
got  loose  and  I  was  a  few  minutes  in  repicket- 
ing  him.  I  had  not  been  lying  down  more  than 
twenty  minutes,  when  we  were  surprised  by  the 


240  The  Story  of 

Hugoton  'posse'  under  Robinson.  The  latter 
had  left  the  trail,  which  came  down  from  the 
northeast,  and  were  close  upon  us.  They  had 
evidently  been  watching  us  during  the  evening 
with  field-glasses,  as  they  seemed  to  know  where 
we  had  stopped,  and  had  completely  surrounded 
us  before  we  knew  of  their  being  near  us. 

"The  first  I  heard  was  Cross  exclaiming, 
'They  have  got  us!'  At  that  time  there  was 
shooting,  and  Robinson  called  out,  'Boys,  close 
in!'  He  called  out  to  Cross,  'Surrender,  and 
hold  up  your  hands!'  Our  arms  were  mostly 
against  the  haystacks.  Not  one  of  us  fired  a 
shot,  or  could  have  done  so  at  that  moment. 

"Sheriff  Cross,  Hubbard,  and  myself  got  up 
and  stood  together.  We  held  up  our  hands. 
They  did  not  seem  to  notice  Wilcox  and  Eaton, 
who  were  lying  in  the  wagon.  Robinson  called 
out  to  Cross,  'Give  up  your  arms!' 

"  'I  have  no  arms,'  replied  Cross.  He  ex- 
plained that  his  Winchester  was  on  his  saddle 
and  that  he  had  no  revolver. 

"  'I  know  better  than  that,'  said  Robinson. 
'Search  him !'  Some  one  of  the  Hugoton  party 
then  went  over  Cross  after  weapons,  and  told 
Robinson  that  he  had  no  arms. 

"  'I  know  better,'  reiterated  Robinson.    The 


n   a 

IS 

3    2 


The  Outlaw  241 

others  stood  free  at  that  moment,  and  Robin- 
son exclaimed,  'Sheriff  Cross,  you  are.  my  first 
man/  He  raised  his  Winchester  and  fired  at 
Cross,  a  distance  of  a  few  feet,  and  I  saw  Cross 
fall  dead  at  my  side.  It  was  all  a  sort  of  trance 
or  dream  to  me.  I  did  not  seem  to  realize  what 
was  going  on,  but  knew  that  I  could  make  no 
resistance.  My  gun  was  not  within  reach.  I 
knew  that  I,  too,  would  be  shot  down. 

"Hubbard  had  now  been  disarmed,  if  indeed 
he  had  on  any  weapon.  Robinson  remarked  to 
him,  'I  want  you,  too!'  and  as  he  spoke  he 
raised  his  Winchester  and  shot  him  dead,  Hub- 
bard  also  falling  close  to  where  I  stood,  his 
murderer  being  but  a  few  feet  from  him. 

"I  knew  that  my  turn  must  come  pretty  soon. 
It  was  Chamberlain  who  was  to  be  my  execu- 
tioner, J.  B.  Chamberlain,  chairman  of  the 
board  of  county  commissioners  of  Stevens 
county,  and  always  prominent  in  Hugoton  mat- 
ters. Chamberlain  was  about  eight  feet  from 
me,  or  perhaps  less,  when  he  raised  his  rifle 
deliberately  to  kill  me.  There  were  powder 
burns  on  my  neck  and  face  from  the  shot,  as 
the  woman  who  cared  for  me  on  the  following 
day  testified  in  court. 

"I  saw  the  rifle  leveled,  and  realized  that  I 


242  The  Story  of 

was  going  to  be  killed.  Instinctively,  I  flinched 
to  one  side  of  the  line  of  the  rifle.  That  saved 
my  life.  The  ball  entered  the  left  side  of  my 
neck,  about  three-quarters  of  an  inch  from  the 
carotid  artery  and  about  half  an  inch  above  the 
left  clavicle,  coming  out  through  the  left 
shoulder.  I  felt  no  pain  at  the  time,  and,  in- 
deed, did  not  feel  pain  until  the  next  day.  The 
shock  of  the  shot  knocked  me  down  and  numbed 
me,  and  I  suppose  I  lay  a  minute  or  two  before 
I  recovered  sensation  or  knew  anything  about 
my  condition.  It  was  supposed  by  all  that  I 
was  killed,  and,  in  a  vague  way,  I  agreed  that 
I  must  be  killed ;  that  my  spirit  was  simply  pres- 
ent listening  and  seeing. 

"Eaton  had  now  got  out  of  the  wagon,  and 
he  started  to  run  towards  the  horses.  Robin- 
son and  one  or  two  others  now  turned  and  pur- 
sued him,  and  I  heard  a  shot  or  so.  Robinson 
came  back  and  I  heard  him  say,  'I  have  shot 
the who  drew  a  gun  on  me !' 

"Then  I  heard  the  Hugoton  men  talking  and 
declaring  that  they  must  have  the  fifth  man  of 
our  party,  whom  they  had  not  yet  found.  At 
this  time,  old  man  Haas  and  his  sons  came  and 
stood  near  where  I  was  and  saw  me  looking  up. 
The  former,  seeing  that  I  was  not  dead,  asked 


The  Outlaw  243 

me  where  I  had  been  shot.  'They  have  shot 
my  arm  off,'  I  answered  him.  At  this  moment 
I  heard  the  Hugoton  men  starting  toward  me, 
and  I  dropped  back  and  feigned  death.  Haas 
did  not  betray  me.  The  Hugoton  men  now  lit 
matches  and  peered  into  the  faces  of  their  vic- 
tims to  see  if  they  were  dead.  I  kept  my  eyes 
shut  when  the  matches  were  held  to  my  face, 
and  held  my  breath. 

"They  finally  found  Wilcox,  I  do  not  know 
just  where,  but  they  stood  him  up  within  fifteen 
feet  of  where  I  was  lying  feigning  death.  They 
asked  Wilcox  what  he  had  been  doing  there, 
and  he  replied  that  he  had  just  been  down  on 
the  Strip  looking  around. 

"'That's  a  damned  lie!'  replied  Robinson, 
the  head  executioner.  As  he  spoke,  he  raised 
his  Winchester  and  fired.  Wilcox  fell,  and  as 
he  lay  he  moaned  a  little  bit,  as  I  heard: 

"  'Put  the  fellow  out  of  his  misery,'  remarked 
Robinson,  carelessly.  Some  one  then  appar- 
ently fired  a  revolver  shot  and  Wilcox  became 
silent. 

"Some  one  came  to  me,  took  hold  of  my  foot, 
and  began  to  pull  me  around  to  see  whether  I 
was  dead.  Robinson  wanted  it  made  sure. 
Chamberlain,  my  executioner,  said,  'He's  dead; 


244  The  Story  of 

I  gave  him  a  center  shot.  I  don't  need  shoot 
a  man  twice  at  that  distance.'  Either  Chamber- 
lain or  some  one  else  took  me  by  the  legs, 
dragged  me  about,  and  kicked  me  in  the  side, 
leaving  bruises  which  were  visible  for  many 
days  afterwards.  I  feigned  death  so  well  that 
they  did  not  shoot  me  again.  They  did  shoot 
a  second  time  each  of  the  others  who  lay  near 
me.  We  found  seven  cartridges  on  the  ground 
near  where  the  killing  was  done.  Eaton  was 
shot  at  a  little  distance  from  us,  and  I  do  not 
know  whether  he  was  shot  more  than  once 
or  not. 

"The  haymakers  were  now  in  trouble,  and 
said  that  they  could  not  go  on  putting  up  their 
hay  with  the  corpses  lying  around.  Robinson 
told  them  to  hitch  up  and  follow  the  Hugoton 
party  away.  They  did  this,  and  after  a  while 
I  was  left  lying  there  in  the  half-moonlight, 
with  the  dead  bodies  of  my  friends  for  com- 
pany. 

"After  the  party  had  been  gone  about  twenty 
minutes,  I  found  I  could  get  on  my  feet, 
although  I  was  very  weak.  At  first,  I  went 
and  examined  Wilcox,  Cross,  and  Hubbard, 
and  found  they  were  quite  dead.  Their  belts 
and  guns  were  gone.  Then  I  went  to  get  my 


The  Outlaw  245 

horse.  It  was  hard  for  me  to  get  into  the  sad- 
dle, and  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  providential 
that  I  could  do  so  at  all.  My  horse  was  very 
wild  and  difficult  to  mount  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances. Now,  it  seemed  to  me  that  he 
knew  my  plight.  It  is  certain  that  at  that  time 
and  afterwards  he  was  perfectly  quiet  and  gen- 
tle, even  when  I  laboriously  tried  to  get  into  the 
saddle. 

"At  a  little  distance,  there  was  a  buffalo  wal- 
low, with  some  filthy  water  in  it.  I  led  my 
horse  here,  lay  down  in  the  water,  and  drank 
a  little  of  it.  After  that  I  rode  about  fifteen 
or  sixteen  miles  along  a  trail,  not  fully  knowing 
where  I  was  going.  In  the  morning,  I  met 
constable  Herman  Cann,  of  Voorhees,  who 
had  been  told  by  the  Haas  party  of  the  fore- 
going facts.  Of  course,  we  might  expect  a 
Hugoton  'posse'  at  any  time.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  same  crowd  who  did  the  killing  (fif- 
teen of  them,  as  I  afterwards  learned),  after 
taking  the  haymakers  back  toward  the  State 
of  Kansas,  returned  on  their  hunt  for  one  of 
Short's  men,  who  they  supposed  was  still  in  that 
locality.  It  was  probably  not  later  than  one  or 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  they  found 
me  gone. 


246  The  Story  of 

"Our  butchers  now  again  sat  down  on  the 
ground  near  the  bodies  of  their  victims,  and 
they  seem  to  have  enjoyed  themselves.  There 
was  talk  that  some  beer  bottles  were  emptied 
and  left  near  the  heads  of  their  victims  as 
markers,  but  whether  this  was  deliberately  done 
I  cannot  say. 

"Constable  Cann  later  hid  me  in  the  middle 
of  a  cornfield.  This,  no  doubt,  saved  my  life, 
for  the  Hugoton  scouts  were  soon  down  there 
the  next  morning,  having  discovered  that  one 
of  the  victims  had  come  to  life.  Woodsdale 
had  sent  out  two  wagons  with  ice  to  bring  in 
the  bodies  of  the  dead  men,  but  these  Hugoton 
scouts  met  them  and  made  them  ride  through 
Hugoton,  so  that  the  assembled  citizens  of  that 
town  might  see  the  corpses.  The  county  attor- 
ney, William  O'Connor,  made  a  speech,  de- 
manding ,  that  Hugoton  march  on  Woodsdale 
and  kill  Wood  and  Ed  Short. 

"By  this  time,  of  course,  all  Woodsdale  was 
also  under  arms.  My  friends  gathered  from 
all  over  the  countryside,  a  large  body  of  them, 
heavily  armed.  Mr.  Cann,  the  constable,  had 
tried  to  take  me  to  Liberal,  but  I  could  not 
stand  the  ride.  I  was  then  taken  to  the  house 
of  a  doctor  in  the  settlement  at  LaFayette.  On 


The  Outlaw  247 

the  second  night  after  the  massacre  I  was  taken 
to  Woodsdale  by  about  twenty  of  the  Woods- 
dale  boys,  who  came  after  me.  We  arrived  at 
Woodsdale  about  daybreak  next  morning.  In 
our  night  trip  we  could  see  the  skyrocket  sig- 
nals used  by  the  Robinson-Cook  gang. 

"After  my  arrival  at  Woodsdale,  it  might 
have  been  supposed  that  all  the  country  was  in 
a  state  of  war,  instead  of  living  in  a  time  of 
modern  civilization.  Entrenchments  were 
thrown  up,  rifle  pits  were  dug,  and  stands  estab- 
lished for  sharp-shooters.  Guards  were  thrown 
out  all  around  the  town,  and  mounted  scouts 
continued  to  scour  the  country.  Hugoton,  ex- 
pecting that  Woodsdale  would  make  an  organ- 
ized attack  in  retaliation,  was  quite  as  fully 
fortified  in  every  way.  Had  there  been  a  de- 
termined leader,  the  bloodshed  would  have 
been  much  greater.  Of  course,  the  result  of 
this  state  of  hostilities  was  that  the  governor 
sent  out  the  militia,  and  there  were  investiga- 
tions, and,  later  on,  arrests  and  trials.  The  two 
towns  literally  fought  each  other  to  the  death. 

"The  murder  of  Sheriff  Cross  occurred  in 
1888.  The  militia  were  withdrawn  within 
about  thirty  days  thereafter.  Both  towns  con- 
tinued to  break  the  law — in  short,  agreed  jointly 


248  The  Story  of 

to  break  the  law.  They  drew  up  a  stipulation, 
it  is  said,  under  which  Colonel  Wood  was  to 
have  all  the  charges  against  the  Hugoton  men 
dismissed.  In  return,  Wood  was  to  have  all 
the  charges  against  him  in  Hugoton  dismissed, 
and  was  to  have  safe  conduct  when  he  came  up 
to  court.  Not  even  this  compounding  of  felony 
was  kept  as  a  pact  between  these  treacherous 
communities. 

"The  trial  lagged.  Wood  was  once  more 
under  bond  to  appear  at  Hugoton,  before  the 
court  of  his  enemy,  Judge  Botkin,  and  among 
many  other  of  his  Hugoton  enemies.  On  the 
day  that  Colonel  Wood  was  to  go  for  his  trial, 
June  23,  1891,  he  drove  up  in  a  buggy.  In 
the  vehicle  with  him  were  his  wife  and  a  Mrs. 
Perry  Carpenter.  Court  was  held  in  the 
Methodist  church.  At  the  time  of  Wood's 
arrival,  the  docket  had  been  called  and  a  num- 
ber of  cases  set  for  trial,  including  one  against 
Wood  for  arson — there  was  no  crime  in  the 
calendar  of  which  one  town  did  not  accuse  the 
other,  and,  indeed,  of  which  the  citizens  of 
either  were  not  guilty. 

"Wood  left  the  two  ladies  sitting  in  the 
buggy,  near  the  door,  and  stepped  up  to  the 
clerk's  desk  to  look  over  some  papers.  As  he 


The  Outlaw  249 

went  in,  he  passed,  leaning  against  the  door, 
one  Jim  Brennan,  a  deputy  of  Hugoton,  who 
did  not  seem  to  notice  him.  Brennan  was  a 
friend  of  C.  E.  Cook,  then  under  conviction 
for  the  Hay  Meadows  massacre.  Brennan 
stood  talking  to  Mrs.  Wood  and  Mrs.  Carpen- 
ter, smiling  and  apparently  pleasant.  Colonel 
Wood  turned  and  came  down  towards  the  door, 
again  passing  close  to  Brennan  but  not  speak- 
ing to  him.  He  was  almost  upon  the  point  of 
climbing  to  his  seat  in  the  buggy,  when  Bren- 
nan, without  a  word  and  without  any  sort  of 
warning,  drew  a  revolver  and  shot  him  in  the 
back.  Wood  wheeled  around,  and  Brennan 
shot  him  the  second  time,  through  the  right  side. 
Not  a  word  had  been  spoken  by  any  one. 
Wood  now  started  to  run  around  the  corner  of 
the  house.  His  wife,  realizing  now  what  was 
happening,  sprang  from  the  buggy-seat  and  fol- 
lowed to  protect  him.  Brennan  fired  a  third 
time,  but  missed.  Mrs.  Wood,  reaching  her 
husband's  side,  threw  her  arms  around  his  neck. 
Brennan  coming  close  up,  fired  a  fourth  shot, 
this  time  through  Wood's  head.  The  mur- 
dered man  fell  heavily,  literally  in  his  wife's 
arms,  and  for  the  moment  it  was  thought  both 
were  killed.  Brennan  drew  a  second  revolver, 


250  The  Story  of 

and  so  stood  over  Wood's  corpse,  refusing  to 
surrender  to  any  one  but  the  sheriff  of  Morton 
county. 

"The  presiding  judge  at  this  trial  was 
Theodosius  Botkin,  a  figure  of  peculiar  emi- 
nence in  Kansas  at  that  time.  Botkin  gave 
Brennan  into  the  custody  of  the  sheriff  of  Mor- 
ton county.  He  was  removed  from  the  county, 
and  it  need  hardly  be  stated  that  when  he  was 
at  last  brought  back  for  trial  it  was  found  im- 
possible to  empanel  a  jury,  and  he  was  set  free. 
No  one  was  ever  punished  for  this  cold-blooded 
murder. 

"Colonel  S.  N.  Wood  was  an  Ohio  man,  but 
moved  to  Kansas  in  the  early  Free  Soil  days. 
He  was  a  friend  and  champion  of  old  John 
Brown  and  a  colonel  of  volunteers  in  the  civil 
war.  He  had  served  in  the  legislature  of  Kan- 
sas, and  was  a  good  type  of  the  early  and  ad- 
venturous pioneer. 

"Whether  or  not  suspicion  attached  to  Judge 
Botkin  for  his  conduct  in  this  matter,  he  him- 
self seems  to  have  feared  revenge,  for  he  held 
court  with  a  Winchester  at  his  hand  and  a  brace 
of  revolvers  on  the  desk  in  front  of  him,  his 
court-house  always  surrounded  with  an  armed 
guard.  He  offended  men  in  Seward  county, 


The  Outlaw  251 

and  there  was  a  plot  made  to  kill  him.  A  party 
lay  in  wait  along  the  road  to  intercept  Botkin 
on  his  journey  from  his  homestead — every  one 
in  Kansas  at  that  time  had  a  'claim' — but  Bot- 
kin was  warned  by  some  friend.  He  sent  out 
Sam  Dunn,  sheriff  of  Seward  county,  to  dis- 
cover the  truth  of  the  rumor.  Dunn  went  on 
down  the  trail  and,  in  a  rough  part  of  the 
country,  was  fired  upon  and  killed,  instead  of 
Botkin.  Arrests  were  made  in  this  matter  also, 
but  the  sham  trials  resulted  much  as  had  that 
of  Brennan.  The  records  of  these  trials  may 
be  seen  in  Seward  county.  It  was  murder  for 
murder,  anarchy  for  anarchy,  evasion  for  eva- 
sion, in  this  portion  of  the  frontier.  Judge  Bot- 
kin soon  after  this  resigned  his  seat  upon  the 
bench  and  went  to  lecturing  upon  the  virtues 
of  the  Keeley  cure.  Afterwards  he  went  to  the' 
legislature — the  same  legislature  which  had 
once  tried  him  on  charges  of  impeachment  as 
a  judge! 

"These  events  all  became  known  in  time, 
and  lawlessness  proved  its  own  inability  to  en- 
dure. The  towns  were  abandoned.  Where  in 
1889  there  were  perhaps  4,000  people,  there 
remained  not  100.  The  best  of  the  farms  were 
abandoned  or  sold  for  taxes,  the  late  inhabi- 


252  The  Story  of 

tants  of  the  two  warring  settlements  wander- 
ing out  over  the  world.  The  legislature,  hood- 
winked or  cajoled  heretofore,  at  length  dis- 
organized the  county,  and  anarchy  gave  back 
its  own  to  the  wilderness. 

"I  have  indicated  that  the  trial  of  the  men 
guilty  of  assassinating  my  friends  and  of  at- 
tempting to  kill  myself  in  the  Hay  Meadow 
butchery  was  one  which  reached  a  considerable 
importance  at  the  time.  The  crimes  were  com- 
mitted in  that  strange  portion  of  the  country 
called  No  Man's  Land  or  the  Neutral  Strip. 
The  accused  were  tried  in  the  United  States 
court  at  Paris,  Texas.  I  myself  drew  the  in- 
dictments against  them.  There  were  tried  the 
Cooks,  Chamberlain,  Robinson  and  others  of 
the  Hugoton  party,  and  of  these  six  were  con- 
victed and  sentenced  to  be  hung.  These  men 
were  defended  by  Colonel  George  R.  Peck, 
later  chief  counsel  of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee 
&  St.  Paul  Railway.  With  him  were  associated 
Judge  John  F.  Dillon,  of  New  York;  W.  H. 
Rossington,  of  St.  Louis;  Senator  Manderson, 
of  Nebraska ;  Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  and 
others.  The  Knights  of  Pythias  raised  a  fund 
to  defend  the  prisoners,  and  spent  perhaps  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  in  all  in  this  under- 


The  Outlaw  253 

taking.  A  vast  political  'pull'  was  exercised  at 
Topeka  and  Washington.  After  the  sentence 
had  been  passed,  the  case  was  taken  up  to  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  on  the  ground 
that  the  Texas  court  had  no  jurisdiction  in  the 
premises,  and  on  the  further  grounds  of  errors 
in  the  trial.  The  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  in  1891,  reversed  the  Texas  court,  on 
an  error  on  the  admission  of  evidence,  and  re- 
manded the  cases.  The  men  were  never  put  on 
trial  again,  except  that,  in  1898,  Sam  Robin- 
son, meantime  pardoned  out  of  the  penitentiary 
in  Colorado,  where  he  had  been  sent  for  rob- 
bing the  United  States  mails  at  Florissant,  Colo- 
rado, returned  to  Texas,  and  was  arrested  on 
the  old  charge.  The  men  convicted  were  C.  E. 
Cook,  Orrin  Cook,  Cyrus  C.  Freese,  John  Law- 
rence and  John  Jackson. 

"The  Illinois  legislature  petitioned  Congress 
to  extend  United  States  jurisdiction  over  No 
Man's  Land,  and  so  did  the  state  of  Indiana; 
and  it  was  attached  to  the  East  District  of 
Texas  for  the  purposes  of  jurisdiction.  Con- 
gressman Springer  held  up  this  bill  for  a  time, 
using  it  as  a  club  for  the  passage  of  a  measure 
of  his  own  upon  which  he  was  intent.  Thus, 
it  may  be  seen  that  the  tawdry  little  tragedy  in 


254  The  Story  of 

that  land  which  indeed  was  'No  Man's  Land' 
in  time  attained  a  national  prominence. 

"The  collecting  of  the  witnesses  for  this  trial 
cost  the  United  States  government  over  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  trial  was  long 
and  bitterly  fought.  It  resulted,  as  did  every 
attempt  to  convict  those  concerned  in  the 
bloody  doings  of  Stevens  county,  in  an  abso- 
lute failure  of  the  ends  of  justice.  Of  all  the 
murders  committed  in  that  bitter  fighting,  not 
one  murderer  has  ever  been  punished!  Never 
was  greater  political  or  judicial  mockery. 

"I  had  the  singular  experience,  once  in  my 
life,  of  eating  dinner  at  the  same  table  with  the 
man  who  brutally  shot  me  down  and  left  me 
for  dead.  J.  B.  Chamberlain,  the  man  who 
shot  me,  and  who  thought  he  had  killed  me, 
came  in  with  a  friend  and  sat  down  at  the  same 
table  in  a  Leavenworth,  Kansas,  restaurant, 
where  I  was  eating.  My  opportunity ,  for  re- 
venge was  there.  I  did  not  take  it.  Chamber- 
lain and  his  friend  did  not  know  who  I  was.  I 
left  the  matter  to  the  law,  with  what  results 
the  records  of  the  law's  failure  in  these  matters 
has  shown. 

1  'Of  those  who  were  tried  for  these  murders, 
J.  B.  Chamberlain  is  now  dead.  C.  E.  Cook, 


The   Outlaw  255 

who  was  much  alarmed  lest  the  cases  might  be 
reinstated  in  the  year  1898,  claims  Quincy,  Illi- 
nois, as  his  home,  but  has  interests  in  Florida. 
O.  J.  Cook  is  dead.  Jack  Lawrence  is  dead. 
John  Kelley  is  dead.  Other  actors  in  the 
drama,  unconvicted,  are  also  dead  or  nameless 
wanderers.  As  the  indictments  were  all 
quashed  in  1898,  Sam  Robinson,  whose  where- 
abouts is  unknown,  will  never  be  brought  to 
trial  for  his  deeds  in  the  Hay  Meadow  butch- 
ery. He  was  not  tried  at  Paris,  being  then  in 
the  Colorado  penitentiary.  His  friend  and 
partner,  Bert  Nobel,  who  was  sent  to  the  peni- 
tentiary for  seven  years  for  participating  in  the 
postoffice  robbery,  was  pardoned  out,  and  later 
killed  a  policeman  at  Trinidad,  Colorado.  He 
was  tried  there  and  hanged.  So  far  as  I  know, 
this  is  the  only  legal  punishment  ever  inflicted 
upon  any  of  the  Hugoton  or  Woodsdale  men, 
who  outvied  each  other  in  a  lawlessness  for 
which  anarchy  would  be  a  mild  name." 


256  The  Story  of 


Chapter  XVI 

Biographies  of  Bad  Men — Desperadoes  of  the 
Deserts — Billy  the  Kid,  Jesse  Evans,  Joel 
Fowler,  and  Others  Skilled  in  the  Art  of  Gun 
Fighting.  ::::::::: 

THE  desert  regions  of  the  West  seemed 
always  to  breed  truculence  and  touchi- 
ness. Some  of  the  most  desperate  out- 
laws have  been  those  of  western  Texas,  New 
Mexico,  and  Arizona.  These  have  sometimes 
been  Mexicans,  sometimes  half-breed  Indians, 
very  rarely  full-blood  or  half-blood  negroes. 
The  latter  race  breeds  criminals,  but  lacks  in 
the  initiative  required  in  the  character  of  the 
desperado.  Texas  and  the  great  arid  regions 
west  of  Texas  produced  rather  more  than  their 
full  quota  of  bad  white  men  who  took  naturally 
to  the  gun. 

By  all  means  the  most  prominent  figure  in 
the    general    fighting    along   the    Southwestern 


The  Outlaw  257 

border,  which  found  climax  in  the  Lincoln 
County  War,  was  that  historic  and  somewhat 
romantic  character  known  as  Billy  the  Kid,  who 
had  more  than  a  score  of  killings  to  his  credit 
at  the  time  of  his  death  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one.  His  character  may  not  be  chosen  as  an 
exemplar  for  youth,  but  he  affords  an  instance 
hardly  to  be  surpassed  of  the  typical  bad 
man. 

The  true  name  of  Billy  the  Kid  was  William 
H.  Bonney,  and  he  was  born  in  New  York 
City,  November  23,  1859.  His  father  removed 
to  Coffeyville,  on  the  border  of  the  Indian  Na- 
tions, in  1862,  where  soon  after  he  died,  leaving 
a  widow  and  two  sons.  Mrs.  Bonney  again 
moved,  this  time  to  Colorado,  where  she  mar- 
ried again,  her  second  husband  being  named 
Antrim.  All  the  time  clinging  to  what  was  the 
wild  border,  these  two  now  moved  down  to 
Santa  Fe,  New  Mexico,  where  they  remained 
until  Billy  was  eight  years  of  age.  In  1868, 
the  family  made  their  home  at  Silver  City,  New 
Mexico,  where  they  lived  until  1871,  when 
Billy  was  twelve  years  of  age.  His  life  until 
then  had  been  one  of  shifting  about,  in  poverty 
or  at  best  rude  comfort.  His  mother  seems  to 
have  been  a  wholesome  Irishwoman,  of  no  great 


258  The  Story  of 

education,  but  of  good  instincts.  Of  the  boy's 
father  nothing  is  known;  and  of  his  stepfather 
little  more,  except  that  he  was  abusive  to  the 
stepchildren.  Antrim  survived  his  wife,  who 
died  about  1870.  The  Kid  always  said  that  his 
stepfather  was  the  cause  of  his  "getting 
off  wrong. " 

The  Kid  was  only  twelve  years  old  when, 
in  a  saloon  row  in  which  a  friend  of  his  was 
being  beaten,  he  killed  with  a  pocket-knife  a 
man  who  had  previously  insulted  him.  Some 
say  that  this  was  an  insult  offered  to  his  mother ; 
others  deny  it  and  say  that  the  man  had  at- 
tempted to  horsewhip  Billy.  The  boy  turned 
up  with  a  companion  at  Fort  Bowie,  Pima 
county,  Arizona,  and  was  around  the  reserva- 
tion for  a  while.  At  last  he  and  his  associate, 
who  appears  to  have  been  as  well  saturated 
with  border  doctrine  as  himself  at  tender  years, 
stole  some  horses  from  a  band  of  Apaches,  and 
incidentally  killed  three  of  the  latter  in  a  night 
attack.  They  made  their  first  step  at  easy 
living  in  this  enterprise,  and,  young  as  they 
were,  got  means  in  this  way  to  travel  about  over 
Arizona.  They  presently  turned  up  at  Tucson, 
where  Billy  began  to  employ  his  precocious 
skill  at  cards;  and  where,  presently,  in  the 


BILLY  THE   KID 

Said  to  have  slain  twenty-two  men  in  his  short  career.      Killed  when  twenty- 
one  years  old  by  Sheriff  Pat  F   Garrett 


The  Outlaw  259 

inevitable  gambler's  quarrel,  he  killed  another 
man.  He  fled  across  the  line  now  into  old 
Mexico,  where,  in  the  state  of  Sonora,  he  set 
up  as  a  youthful  gambler.  Here  he  killed  a 
gambler,  Jose  Martinez,  over  a  monte  game, 
on  an  "even  break,"  being  the  fraction  of  a 
second  the  quicker  on  the  draw.  He  was 
already  beginning  to  show  his  natural  fitness 
as  a  handler  of  weapons.  He  kept  up  his  record 
by  appearing  next  at  Chihuahua  and  robbing  a 
few  monte  dealers  there,  killing  one  whom  he 
waylaid  with  a  new  companion  by  the  name  of 
Segura. 

The  Kid  was  now  old  enough  to  be  danger- 
ous, and  his  life  had  been  one  of  irresponsi- 
bility and  lawlessness.  He  was  nearly  at  his 
physical  growth  at  this  time,  possibly  five  feet 
seven  and  a  half  inches  in  height,  and  weighing 
a  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds.  He  was 
always  slight  and  lean,  a  hard  rider  all  his  life, 
and  never  old  enough  to  begin  to  take  on  flesh. 
His  hair  was  light  or  light  brown,  and  his  eyes 
blue  or  blue-gray,  with  curious  red  hazel  spots 
in  them.  His  face  was  rather  long,  his  chin 
narrow  but  long,  and  his  front  teeth  were  a 
trifle  prominent.  He  was  always  a  pleasant 
mannered  youth,  hopeful  and  buoyant,  never 


260  The  Story  of 

glum  or  grim,  and  he  nearly  always  smiled  when 
talking. 

The  Southwestern  border  at  this  time  offered 
but  few  opportunities  for  making  an  honest 
living.  There  were  the  mines  and  there  were 
the  cow  ranches.  It  was  natural  that  the  half- 
wild  life  of  the  cow  punchers  would  sooner  or 
later  appeal  to  the  Kid.  He  and  Jesse  Evans 
met  somewhere  along  the  lower  border  a  party 
of  punchers,  among  whom  were  Billy  Morton 
and  Frank  Baker,  as  well  as  James  McDaniels; 
the  last  named  being  the  man  who  gave  Billy 
his  name  of  "The  Kid,"  which  hung  to  him 
all  his  life. 

The  Kid  arrived  in  the  Seven  Rivers  country 
on  foot.  In  his  course  east  over  the  mountains 
from  Mesilla  to  the  Pecos  valley  he  had  been 
mixed  up  with  a  companion,  Tom  O'Keefe,  in 
a  fight  with  some  more  Apaches,  of  whom  the 
Kid  is  reported  to  have  killed  one  or  more. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Guadalupe  moun- 
tains, which  he  crossed,  were  at  that  time  a 
dangerous  Indian  country.  That  the  Kid 
worked  for  a  time  for  John  Chisum,  on  his 
ranch  near  Roswell,  is  well  known,  as  is  the 
fact  that  he  cherished  a  grudge  against  Chisum 
for  years,  and  was  more  than  once  upon  the 


The  Outlaw  261 

point  of  killing  him  for  a  real  or  fancied  griev- 
ance. He  left  Chisum  and  took  service  with 
J.  H.  Tunstall  on  his  Feliz  ranch  late  in  the 
winter  of  1877,  animated  by  what  reason  we 
may  not  know.  In  doing  this,  he  may  have 
acted  from  pique  or  spite  or  hatred.  There 
was  some  quarrel  between  him  and  his  late  asso- 
ciates. Tunstall  was  killed  by  the  Murphy  fac- 
tion on  February  18,  1878.  From  that  time, 
the  path  of  the  Kid  is  very  plain  and  his  acts 
well  known  and  authenticated.  He  had  by  this 
time  killed  several  men,  certainly  at  least  two 
white  men;  and  how  many  Mexicans  and  In- 
dians he  had  killed  by  fair  means  or  foul  will 
never  be  really  known.  His  reputation  as  a 
gun  fighter  was  well  established. 

Dick  Brewer,  Tunstall's  foreman,  was  now 
sworn  in  as  a  "special  deputy"  by  McSween,  and 
a  war  of  reprisal  was  now  on.  The  Kid  was 
soon  in  the  saddle  with  Brewer  and  after  his 
former  friends,  all  Murphy  allies.  There  were 
about  a  dozen  in  this  posse.  On  March  6, 
1878,  these  men  discovered  and  captured  a  band 
of  five  men,  including  Frank  Baker  and  Billy 
Morton,  both  old  friends  of  the  Kid,  at  the 
lower  crossing  of  the  Rio  Penasco,  some  six 
miles  from  the  Pecos.  The  prisoners  were  kept 


262  The  Story  of 

over  night  at  Chisum's  ranch,  and  then  the 
posse  started  with  them  for  Lincoln,  not  taking 
the  Hondo-Bonito  trail,  but  one  via  the  Agua 
Negra,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Capitans;  proof 
enough  that  something  bloody  was  in  contem- 
plation, for  that  was  far  from  any  settlements. 
Apologists  of  the  Kid  say  that  Morton  and 
Baker  "tried  to  escape,"  and  that  the  Kid  fol- 
lowed and  killed  them.  The  truth  in  all  proba- 
bility is  that  the  party,  sullen  and  bloody-minded, 
rode  on,  waiting  until  wrath  or  whiskey  should 
inflame  them  so  as  to  give  resolution  for  the  act 
they  all  along  intended.  The  Kid,  youngest 
but  most  determined  of  the  band,  no  doubt  did 
the  killing  of  Billy  Morton  and  Frank  Baker; 
and  in  all  likelihood  there  is  truth  in  the  asser- 
tion that  they  were  on  their  knees  and  begging 
for  their  lives  when  he  shot  them.  McClosky 
was  killed  by  McNab,  on  the  principle  that  dead 
men  tell  no  tales.  This  killing  was  on  March 
9,  1878.  The  murder  of  Sheriff  William  Brady 
and  George  Hindman  by  the  Kid  and  his  half- 
dozen  companions  occurred  April  i,  1878,  and 
it  is  another  act  which  can  have  no  palliation 
whatever. 

The  Kid  was  now  assuming  prominence  as  a 
gun  fighter  and  leader,  young  as  he  was.    After 


The  Outlaw  263 

the  big  fight  in  Lincoln  was  over,  and  the  Mc- 
Sween  house  in  flames,  the  Kid  was  leader  of 
the  sortie  which  took  him  and  a  few  of  his 
companions  to  safety.  The  list  of  killings  back 
of  him  was  now  steadily  lengthening,  and,  in- 
deed, one  murder  followed  another  so  fast  all 
over  that  country  that  it  was  hard  to  keep  track 
of  them  all. 

The  killing  of  the  Indian  agency  clerk,  Bern- 
stein, August  5,  1878,  on  a  horse-stealing  expe- 
dition, was  the  next  act  of  the  Kid  and  his  men, 
who  thereafter  fled  northeast,  out  through  the 
Capitan  Gap,  to  certain  old  haunts  around  Fort 
Sumner,  some  ninety  miles  north  of  Roswell, 
up  the  Pecos  valley.  Here  a  little  band  of  out- 
laws, led  by  the  Kid,  lived  for  a  time  as  they 
could  by  stealing  horses  along  the  Bonito  and 
around  the  Capitans,  and  running  them  off  north 
and  east.  There  were  in  this  band  at  the  time 
the  Kid,  Charlie  Bowdre,  Doc  Skurlock,  Wayt, 
Tom  O'Folliard,  Hendry  Brown  and  Jack  Mid- 
dleton.  Some  or  all  of  these  were  in  the  march 
with  stolen  horses  which  the  Kid  engineered 
that  fall,  going  as  far  east  as  Atacosa,  on  the 
Canadian,  before  the  stock  was  all  gotten  rid 
of.  Middleton,  Wayt,  and  Hendry  Brown 
there  left  the  Kid's  gang,  telling  him  that  he 


264  The  Story  of 

would  get  killed  before  long;  but  the  latter 
laughed  at  them  and  returned  to  his  old 
grounds,  alternating  between  Lincoln  and  Fort 
Sumner,  and  now  and  then  stealing  some  cows 
from  the  Chisum  herd. 

In  January,  1880,  the  Kid  enlarged  his  list 
of  victims  by  killing,  in  a  very  justifiable  en- 
counter, a  bad  man  from  the  Panhandle  by  the 
name  of  Grant,  who  had  been  loafing  around  in 
his  country,  and  who,  no  doubt,  intended  to  kill 
the  Kid  for  the  glory  of  it.  The  Kid  had,  a  few 
moments  before  he  shot  Grant,  taken  the  pre- 
caution to  set  the  hammer  of  the  latter's  re- 
volver on  an  "empty,"  as  he  whirled  it  over  in 
examination.  They  were  apparently  friends, 
but  the  Kid  knew  that  Grant  was  drunk  and 
bloodthirsty.  He  shot  Grant  twice  through  the 
throat,  as  Grant  snapped  his  pistol  in  his  face. 
Nothing  was  done  with  the  Kid  for  this,  of 
course. 

Birds  of  a  feather  now  began  to  appear  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Fort  Sumner,  and  the  Kid's 
gang  was  increased  by  the  addition  of  Tom 
Pickett,  and  later  by  Billy  Wilson,  Dave  Ruda- 
baugh,  Buck  Edwards,  and  one  or  two  others. 
These  men  stole  cattle  now  from  ranges  as  far 
east  as  the  Canadian,  and  sold  them  to  obliging 


The  Outlaw  265 

butcher-shops  at  the  new  mining  camp  of  White 
Oaks,  just  coming  into  prominence;  or,  again, 
they  took  cattle  from  the  lower  Pecos  herds  and 
sold  them  north  at  Las  Vegas;  or  perhaps  they 
stole  horses  at  the  Indian  reservation  and  dis- 
tributed them  along  the  Pecos  valley.  Their 
operations  covered  a  country  more  than  two 
hundred  miles  across  in  either  direction.  They 
had  accomplices  and  friends  in  nearly  every 
little  placita  of  the  country.  Sometimes  they 
gave  a  man  a  horse  as  a  present.  If  he  took  it, 
it  meant  that  they  could  depend  upon  him  to 
keep  silent.  Partly  by  friendliness  and  partly 
by  terrorizing,  their  influence  was  extended  until 
they  became  a  power  in  all  that  portion  of  the 
country;  and  their  self-confidence  had  now 
arisen  to  the  point  that  they  thought  none  dared 
to  molest  them,  while  in  general  they  behaved  in 
the  high-handed  fashion  of  true  border  bandits. 
This  was  the  heyday  of  the  Kid's  career. 

It  was  on  November  27,  1880,  that  the  Kid 
next  added  to  his  list  of  killings.  The  men  of 
White  Oaks,  headed  by  deputy  sheriff  William 
Hudgens,  saloon-keeper  of  White  Oaks,  formed 
a  posse,  after  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and 
started  out  after  the  Kid,  who  had  passed  all 
bounds  in  impudence  of  late.  In  this  posse 


266  The  Story  of 

were  Hudgens  and  his  brother,  Johnny  Hud- 
gens,  Jim  Watts,  John  Mosby,  Jim  Brent,  J.  P. 
Langston,  Ed.  Bonnell,  W.  G.  Dorsey,  J.  W. 
Bell,  J.  P.  Eaker,  Charles  Kelly,  and  Jimmy 
Carlyle.  They  bayed  up  the  Kid  and  his  gang 
in  the  Greathouse  ranch,  forty  miles  from 
White  Oaks,  and  laid  siege,  although  the 
weather  was  bitterly  cold  and  the  party  had  not 
supplies  or  blankets  for  a  long  stay.  Hudgens 
demanded  the  surrender  of  the  Kid,  and  the  lat- 
ter said  he  could  not  be  taken  alive.  Hudgens 
then  sent  word  for  Billy  Wilson  to  come  out  and 
have  a  talk.  The  latter  refused,  but  said  he 
would  talk  with  Jimmy  Carlyle,  if  the  latter 
would  come  into  the  house.  Carlyle,  against 
the  advice  of  all,  took  off  his  pistol  belt  and 
stepped  into  the  house.  He  was  kept  there  for 
hours.  About  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  they 
heard  the  window  glass  crash  and  saw  Carlyle 
break  through  the  window  and  start  to  run. 
Several  shots  followed,  and  Carlyle  fell  dead, 
the  bullets  that  killed  him  cutting  dust  in  the 
faces  of  Hudgens'  men,  as  they  lay  across  the 
road  from  the  house. 

This  murder  was  a  nail  in  the  Kid's  coffin, 
for  Carlyle  was  well  liked  at  White  Oaks.  By 
this  time  the  toils  began  to  tighten  in  all  direc- 


The  Outlaw  267 

tions.  The  United  States  Government  had  a 
detective,  Azariah  F.  Wild,  in  Lincoln  county. 
Pat  Garrett  had  now  just  been  elected  sheriff, 
and  was  after  the  outlaws.  Frank  Stewart,  a 
cattle  detective,  with  a  party  of  several  men, 
was  also  in  from  the  Canadian  country  looking 
for  the  Kid  and  his  gang  for  thefts  committed 
over  to  the  east  of  Lincoln  county,  across  the 
lines  of  Texas  and  the  Neutral  Strip.  The  Kid 
at  this  time  wrote  to  Captain  J.  C.  Lea,  at 
Roswell,  that  if  the  officers  would  leave  him 
alone  for  a  time,  until  he  could  get  his  stuff 
together,  he  would  pull  up  and  leave  the  coun- 
try, going  to  old  Mexico,  but  that  if  he  was 
crowded  by  Garrett  or  any  one  else,  he  surely 
would  start  in  and  do  some  more  killing.  This 
did  not  deter  Garrett,  who,  with  a  posse  made 
up  of  Chambers,  Barney  Mason,  Frank  Stew- 
art, Juan  Roibal,  Lee  Halls,  Jim  East,  "Poker 
Tom,"  "Tenderfoot  Bob,"  and  "The  Animal," 
with  others,  all  more  or  less  game,  or  at  least 
game  enough  to  go  as  far  as  Fort  Sumner,  at 
length  rounded  up  the  Kid,  and  took  him,  Billy 
Wilson,  Tom  Pickett  and  Dave  Rudabaugh; 
Garrett  killing  O'Folliard  and  Bowdre. 

Pickett  was  left  at  Las  Vegas,  as  there  was 
no    United    States    warrant    out    against    him. 


268  The  Story  of 

Rudabaugh  was  tried  later  for  robbing  the 
United  States  mails,  later  tried  for  killing  his 
jailer,  and  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  be 
hung;  but  once  more  escaped  from  the  Las 
Vegas  jail  and  got  away  for  good.  The  Kid 
was  not  so  fortunate.  He  was  tried  at  Mesilla, 
before  Judge  Warren  H.  Bristol,  the  same  man 
whose  life  he  was  charged  with  attempting  in 
1879.  Judge  Bristol  appointed  Judge  Ira  E. 
Leonard,  of  Lincoln,  to  defend  the  prisoner, 
and  Leonard  got  him  acquitted  of  the  charge 
of  killing  Bernstein  on  the  reservation.  He  was 
next  tried,  at  the  same  term  of  court,  for  the 
killing  of  Sheriff  William  Brady,  and  in  March, 
1 88 1,  he  was  convicted  under  this  charge  and 
sentenced  to  be  hanged  at  Lincoln  on  May  13, 
1 88 1.  He  was  first  placed  under  guard  of 
Deputies  Bob  Ollinger  and  Dave  Woods,  and 
taken  across  the  mountains  in  the  custody  of 
Sheriff  Garrett,  who  received  his  prisoner  at 
Fort  Stanton  on  April  21. 

Lincoln  county  was  just  beginning  to  emerge 
from  savagery.  There  was  no  jail  worth  the 
name,  and  all  the  county  could  claim  as  a  place 
for  the  house  of  law  and  order  was  the  big  store 
building  lately  owned  by  Murphy,  Riley  & 
Dolan.  It  was  necessary  to  keep  the  Kid  under 


The  Outlaw  269 

guard  for  the  three  weeks  or  so  before  his  exe- 
cution, and  Sheriff  Garrett  chose  as  the  best 
available  material  Bob  Ollinger  and  J.  W.  Bell, 
a  good,  quiet  man  from  White  Oaks,  to  act  as 
the  death  watch  over  this  dangerous  man,  who 
seemed  now  to  be  nearly  at  the  end  of  his  day. 
Against  Bob  Ollinger  the  Kid  cherished  an 
undying  hatred,  and  longed  to  kill  him.  Ollin- 
ger hated  him  as  much,  and  wanted  nothing  so 
much  as  to  kill  the  Kid.  He  was  a  friend  of 
Bob  Beckwith,  whom  the  Kid  had  killed,  and 
the  two  had  always  been  on  the  opposite 
sides  of  the  Lincoln  county  fighting.  Ollinger 
taunted  the  Kid  with  his  deeds,  and  showed  his 
own  hatred  in  every  way.  There  are  many 
stories  about  what  now  took  place  in  this  old 
building  at  the  side  of  bloody  little  Lincoln 
street.  A  common  report  is  that  in  the  evening 
of  April  28,  1 88 1,  the  Kid  was  left  alone  in  the 
room  with  Bell,  Ollinger  having  gone  across 
the  street  for  supper;  that  the  Kid  slipped  his 
hands  out  of  his  irons — as  he  was  able  to  do 
when  he  liked,  his  hands  being  very  small — 
struck  Bell  over  the  head  with  his  shackles  while 
Bell  was  reading  or  was  looking  out  of  the  win- 
dow, later  drawing  BelFs  revolver  from  its 
scabbard  and  killing  him  with  it.  This  story 


2 jo  The  Story  of 

is  not  correct.  The  truth  is  that  Bell  took  the 
Kid,  at  his  request,  into  the  yard  back  of  the 
jail;  returning,  the  Kid  sprang  quickly  up  the 
stairs  to  the  guard-room  door,  as  Bell  turned  to 
say  something  to  old  man  Goss,  a  cook,  who 
was  standing  in  the  yard.  The  Kid  pushed 
open  the  door,  caught  up  a  revolver  from  a 
table,  and  sprang  to  the  head  of  the  stairs  just 
as  Bell  turned  the  angle  and  started  up.  He 
fired  at  Bell  and  missed  him,  the  ball  striking 
the  left-hand  side  of  the  staircase.  It  glanced, 
however,  and  passed  through  Bell's  body,  lodg- 
ing in  the  wall  at  the  angle  of  the  stair.  Bell 
staggered  out  into  the  yard  and  fell  dead.  This 
story  is  borne  out  by  the  reports  of  Goss  and 
the  Kid,  and  by  the  bullet  marks.  The  place  is 
very  familiar  to  the  author,  who  at  about  that 
time  practiced  law  in  the  same  building,  when 
it  was  used  as  the  Court  House,  and  who  has 
also  talked  with  many  men  about  the  circum- 
stances. 

The  Kid  now  sprang  into  the  next  room  and 
caught  up  Ollinger's  heavy  shotgun,  loaded 
with  the  very  shells  Ollinger  had  charged  for 
him.  He  saw  Ollinger  coming  across  the  street, 
and  just  as  he  got  below  the  window  at  the  cor- 
ner of  the  building  the  Kid  leaned  over  and 


The  Outlaw  271 

said,  coolly  and  pleasantly,  "Hello,  old  fellow!" 
The  next  instant  he  fired  and  shot  Ollinger 
dead.  He  then  walked  around  through  the 
room  and  out  upon  the  porch,  which  at  that 
time  extended  the  full  length  of  the  building, 
and,  coming  again  in  view  of  Ollinger's  body, 
took  a  second  deliberate  shot  at  it.  Then  he 
broke  the  gun  across  the  railing  and  threw  the 
pieces  down  on  Ollinger's  body.  "Take  that 
to  hell  with  you,"  he  said  coolly.  Then,  seeing 
himself  free  and  once  more  king  of  Lincoln 
street,  he  warned  away  all  who  would  ap- 
proach, and,  with  a  file  which  he  compelled 
Goss  to  bring  to  him,  started  to  file  off  one  of 
his  leg  irons.  He  got  one  free,  ordered  a  by- 
stander to  bring  him  a  horse,  and  at  length, 
mounting,  rode  away  for  the  Capitans,  and 
so  to  a  country  with  which  he  had  long  been 
familiar.  At  Las  Tablas  he  forced  a  Mexican 
blacksmith  to  free  him  of  his  irons.  He  sent 
the  horse,  which  belonged  to  Billy  Burt,  back 
by  some  unknown  friend  the  following  night. 

He  was  now  again  on  his  native  heath,  a 
desperado  and  an  outlaw  indeed,  and  obliged  to 
fight  for  his  life  at  every  turn ;  for  now  he  knew 
the  country  would  turn  against  him,  and,  as  he 
had  been  captured  through  information  fur- 


272  The  Story  of 

nished  through  supposed  friends,  he  knew  that 
treachery  was  what  he  might  expect.  He  knew 
also  that  sheriff  Garrett  would  never  give  him 
up  now,  and  that  one  or  the  other  of  the  two 
must  die. 

Yet,  knowing  all  these  things,  the  Kid,  by 
means  of  stolen  horses,  broke  back  once  more 
to  his  old  stamping  grounds  around  Fort  Sum- 
ner.  Garrett  again  got  on  his  trail,  and  as  the 
Kid,  with  incredible  fatuity,  still  hung  around 
his  old  haunts,  he  was  at  length  able  to  close 
with  him  once  more.  With  his  deputies,  John 
Poe  and  Thomas  P.  McKinney,  he  located  the 
Kid  in  Sumner,  although  no  one  seemed  to  be 
explicit  as  to  his  whereabouts.  He  went  to  Pete 
Maxwell's  house  himself,  and  there,  as  his  two 
deputies  were  sitting  at  the  edge  of  the  gallery 
in  the  moonlight,  he  killed  the  Kid  at  Max- 
well's bedside. 

Billy  the  Kid  had  very  many  actual  friends, 
whom  he  won  by  his  pleasant  and  cheerful  man- 
ners and  his  liberality,  when  he  had  anything 
with  which  to  be  liberal,  although  that  was  not 
often.  He  was  very  popular  among  the  Mexi- 
cans of  the  Pecos  valley.  .  As  to  the  men  the 
Kid  killed  in  his  short  twenty-one  years,  that 
is  a  matter  of  disagreement.  The  usual  story 


THE  NEXT  INSTANT  HE   FIRED  AND   SHOT 

OLLINGER  DEAD" 


The  Outlaw  273 

is  twenty-one,  and  the  Kid  is  said  to  have  de- 
clared he  wanted  to  kill  two  more — Bob  Ollin- 
ger  and  "  Bonnie"  Baca — before  he  died,  to 
make  it  twenty-three  in  all.  Pat  Garrett  says 
the  Kid  had  killed  eleven  men.  Others  say  he 
had  killed  nine.  A  very  few  say  that  the  Kid 
never  killed  any  man  without  full  justification 
and  in  self-defense.  They  regard  the  Kid  as  a 
scapegoat  for  the  sins  of  others.  Indeed,  he 
was  less  fortunate  than  some  others,  but  his 
deeds  brought  him  his  deserts  at  last,  even  as 
they  left  him  an  enduring  reputation  as  one  of 
the  most  desperate  desperadoes  ever  known  in 
the  West. 

Central  and  eastern  New  Mexico,  from  1860 
to  1880,  probably  held  more  desperate  and  dan- 
gerous men  than  any  other  corner  of  the  West 
ever  did.  It  was  a  region  then  more  remote 
and  less  known  than  Africa  is  to-day,  and  no 
record  exists  of  more  than  a  small  portion  of 
its  deeds  of  blood.  Nowhere  in  the  world  was 
human  life  ever  held  cheaper,  and  never  was  any 
population  more  lawless.  There  were  no  courts 
and  no  officers,  and  most  of  the  scattered  inhabi- 
tants of  that  time  had  come  thither  to  escape 
courts  and  officers.  This  environment  which 
produced  Billy  the  Kid  brought  out  others 


274  The  Story  of 

scarcely  less  dangerous,  and  of  a  few  of  these 
there  may  be  made  passing  mention. 

Joel  Fowler  was  long  considered  a  dangerous 
man.  He  was  a  ranch  owner  and  cow  man,  but 
he  came  into  the  settlements  often,  and  nearly 
always  for  the  immediate  purpose  of  getting 
drunk.  In  the  latter  condition  he  was  always 
bloodthirsty  and  quarrelsome,  and  none  could 
tell  what  or  whom  he  might  make  the  object  of 
his  attack.  He  was  very  insulting  and  over- 
bearing, very  noisy  and  obnoxious,  the  sort  of 
desperado  who  makes  unarmed  men  beg  and 
compels  utenderfeet"  to  dance  for  his  amuse- 
ment. His  birth  and  earlier  life  seem  hidden 
by  his  later  career,  when,  at  about  middle  life, 
he  lived  in  central  New  Mexico.  He  was 
accredited  with  killing  about  twenty  men,  but 
there  may  have  been  the  usual  exaggeration 
regarding  this.  His  end  came  in  1884,  at  So- 
corro.  He  was  arrested  for  killing  his  own 
ranch  foreman,  Jack  Cale,  a  man  who  had  be- 
friended him  and  taken  care  of  him  in  many  a 
drunken  orgy.  He  stabbed  Cale  as  they  stood 
at  the  bar  in  a  saloon,  and  while  every  one 
thought  he  was  unarmed.  The  law  against 
carrying  arms  while  in  the  settlements  was  then 
just  beginning  to  be  enforced;  and,  although  it 


The  Outlaw  275 

was  recognized  as  necessary  for  men  to  go 
armed  while  journeying  across  those  wild  and 
little  settled  plains,  the  danger  of  allowing  six- 
shooters  and  whiskey  to  operate  at  the  same 
time  was  generally  recognized  as  well.  If  a 
man  did  not  lay  aside  his  guns  on  reaching  a 
town,  he  was  apt  to  be  invited  to  do  so  by  the 
sheriff  or  town  marshal,  as  Joel  had  already 
been  asked  that  evening. 

Fowler's  victim  staggered  to  the  door  after 
he  was  stabbed  and  fell  dead  at  the  street,  the 
act  being  seen  by  many.  The  law  was  allowed 
to  take  its  course,  and  Fowler  was  tried  and 
sentenced  to  be  hanged.  His  lawyers  took  an 
appeal  on  a  technicality  and  sent  the  case  to 
the  supreme  court,  where  a  long  delay  seemed 
inevitable.  The  jail  was  so  bad  that  an  expen- 
sive guard  had  to  be  maintained.  At  length, 
some  of  the  citizens  concluded  that  to  hang 
Fowler  was  best  for  all  concerned.  They  took 
him,  mounted,  to  a  spot  some  distance  up  the 
railroad,  and  there  hanged  him.  Bill  Howard, 
a  negro  section  hand,  was  permitted  by  his  sec- 
tion boss  to  make  a  coffin  and  bury  Fowler,  a 
matter  which  the  Committee  had  neglected; 
and  he  says  that  he  knows  Fowler  was  buried 
there  and  left  there  for  several  years,  near  the 


276  The  Story  of 

railway  tracks.  The  usual  story  says  that  Fow- 
ler was  hanged  to  a  telegraph  pole  in  town.  At 
any  rate,  he  was  hanged,  and  a  very  wise  and 
seemly  thing  it  was. 

Jesse  Evans  was  another  bad  man  of  this 
date,  a  young  fellow  in  his  early  twenties  when 
he  first  came  to  the  Pecos  country,  but  good 
enough  at  gun  work  to  make  his  services  desira- 
ble. He  was  one  of  the  very  few  men  who  did 
not  fear  Billy  the  Kid.  He  always  said  that 
the  Kid  might  beat  him  with  the  Winchester, 
but  that  he  feared  no  man  living  with  the  six- 
shooter.  Evans  came  very  near  meeting  an 
inglorious  death.  He  and  the  notorious  Tom 
Hill  once  held  up  an  old  German  in  a  sheep 
camp  near  what  is  now  Alamagordo,  New 
Mexico.  The  old  man  did  not  know  that  they 
were  bad  men,  and  while  they  were  looting  his 
wagon,  looking  for  the  money  he  had  in  a  box 
under  the  wagon  seat,  he  slipped  up  and  killed 
Tom  Hill  with  his  own  gun,  which  had  been 
left  resting  against  a  bush  near  by,  nearly  shoot- 
ing Hill's  spine  out.  Then  he  opened  fire  on 
Jesse,  who  was  close  by,  shooting  him  twice, 
through  the  arm  and  through  the  lungs.  The 
latter  managed  to  get  on  his  horse,  bareback, 
and  rode  that  night,  wounded  as  he  was,  and 


The   Outlaw  277 

partly  trailed  by  the  blood  from  his  lungs,  sixty 
miles  or  more  to  the  San  Augustine  mountains, 
where  he  holed  up  at  a  friendly  ranch,  later  to 
be  arrested  by  Constable  Dave  Wood,  from  the 
railway  settlements.  In  default  of  better  juris- 
diction, he  was  taken  to  Fort  Stanton,  where  he 
lay  in  the  hospital  until  he  got  ready  to  escape, 
when  he  seems  to  have  walked  away.  Evans 
and  his  brother,  who  was  known  as  George 
Davis — the  latter  being  the  true  name  of  both 
— then  went  down  toward  Pecos  City  and  got 
into  a  fight  with  some  rangers,  who  killed  his 
brother  on  the  spot  and  captured  Jesse,  who 
was  confined  in  the  Texas  penitentiary  for 
twenty  years.  He  escaped  and  was  returned; 
yet  in  the  year  1882,  when  he  should  have  been 
in  the  Texas  prison,  he  is  said  to  have  been 
seen  and  recognized  on  the  streets  of  Lincoln. 
Evans,  or  Davis,  is  said  to  have  been  a  Tex- 
arkana  man,  and  to  have  returned  to  his  home 
soon  after  this,  only  to  find  his  wife  living  with 
another  man,  and  supposing  her  first  husband 
dead.  He  did  not  tell  the  new  husband  of  his 
presence,  but  took  away  with  him  his  boy,  whom 
he  found  now  well  grown.  It  was  stated  that 
he  went  to  Arizona,  and  nothing  more  is  known 
of  him. 


278  The  Story  of 

Tom  Hill,  the  man  above  mentioned  as 
killed  by  the  sheep  man,  was  a  typical  rough, 
dark,  swarthy,  low-browed,  as  loud-mouthed  as 
he  was  ignorant.  He  was  a  braggart,  but  none 
the  less  a  killer. 

Charlie  Bowdre  is  supposed  to  have  been  a 
Texas  boy,  as  was  Tom  Hill.  Bowdre  had  a 
little  ranch  on  the  Rio  Ruidoso,  twenty  miles  or 
so  from  Lincoln ;  but  few  of  these  restless  char- 
acters did  much  farming.  It  was  easier  to  steal 
cattle,  and  to  eat  beef  free  if  one  were  hungry. 
Bowdre  joined  Billy  the  Kid's  gang  and  turned 
outlaw  for  a  trade.  It  was  all  over  with  his 
chances  of  settling  down  after  that.  He  was  a 
man  who  liked  to  talk  of  what  he  could  do,  and 
a  very  steady  practicer  with  the  six-shooter,  with 
which  weapon  he  was  a  good  shot,  or  just  good 
enough  to  get  himself  killed  by  sheriff  Pat 
Garrett. 

Frank  Baker,  murdered  by  his  former  friend, 
Billy  the  Kid,  at  Agua  Negra,  near  the  Capi- 
tans,  was  part  Cherokee  in  blood,  a  well-spoken 
and  pleasant  man  and  a  good  cow  hand.  He 
was  drawn  into  this  fighting  through  his  work 
for  Chisum  as  a  hired  man.  Baker  was  said  to 
be  connected  with  a  good  family  in  Virginia, 
who  looked  up  the  facts  of  his  death. 


The  Outlaw  279 

Billy  Morton,  killed  with  Baker  by  the  Kid, 
was  a  similar  instance  of  a  young  man  loving 
the  saddle  and  six-shooter  and  finally  getting 
tangled  up  with  matters  outside  his  proper 
sphere  as  a  cow  hand.  He  had  often  ridden 
with  the  Kid  on  the  cow  range.  He  was  said 
to  have  been  with  the  posse  that  killed  Tunstall. 

Hendry  Brown  was  a  crack  gun  fighter,  whose 
services  were  valued  in  the  posse  fighting.  He 
went  to  Kansas  and  long  served  as  marshal  of 
Caldwell.  He  could  not  stand  it  to  be  good, 
and  was  killed  after  robbing  the  bank  and  kill- 
ing the  cashier. 

Johnny  Hurley  was  a  brave  young  man,  as 
brave  as  a  lion.  Hurley  was  acting  as  deputy 
for  sheriff  John  Poe,  together  with  Jim  Brent, 
when  the  desperado  Arragon  was  holed  up  in 
an  adobe  and  refused  to  surrender.  The  Mexi- 
can shot  Hurley  as  he  carelessly  crossed  an  open 
space  directly  in  front  of  the  door.  Hurley  was 
brown-haired  and  blue-eyed;  a  very  pleasant 
fellow. 

Andy  Boyle,  one  of  the  rough  and  ruthless 
sort  of  warriors,  was  an  ex-British  soldier,  a 
drunkard,  and  a  good  deal  of  a  ruffian.  He 
drank  himself  to  death  after  a  decidedly  mixed 
record. 


280  The  Story  of 

John  McKinney  had  a  certain  fame  from 
the  fact  that  in  the  fight  at  the  McSween  house 
the  Kid  shot  off  half  his  mustache  for  him  at 
close  range,  when  the  latter  broke  out  of  cover 
and  ran. 

The  tough  buffalo  hunter,  Bill  Campbell, 
who  figured  largely  in  bloody  deeds  in  New 
Mexico,  was  arrested,  but  escaped  from  Fort 
Stanton,  and  was  never  heard  from  afterward. 
He  came  from  Texas,  but  little  is  known  of 
him.  His  name,  as  earlier  stated,  is  thought 
to  have  been  Ed.  Richardson. 

Captain  Joseph  C.  Lea,  the  staunch  friend 
of  Pat  Garrett,  and  the  man  who  first  brought 
him  forward  as  a  candidate  for  sheriff  of  Lin- 
coln county,  died  February  8,  1904,  at  Ros- 
well,  where  he  lived  for  a  long  time.  Lea  was 
said  to  have  been  a  Quantrell  man  in  the  Law- 
rence massacre.  Much  of  the  population  of 
that  region  had  a  history  that  was  never  writ- 
ten. Lea  was  a  good  man  and  much  respected, 
peaceable,  courteous  and  generous. 

One  more  southwestern  bad  man  found 
Texas  congenial  after  the  close  of  his  active 
fighting,  and  his  is  a  striking  story.  Billy  Wil- 
son was  a  gentlemanly  and  good-looking  young 
fellow,  who  ran  with  Billy  the  Kid's  gang. 


The  Outlaw  281 

Wilson  was  arrested  on  a  United  States  war- 
rant, charged  with  passing  counterfeit  money; 
but  he  later  escaped  and  disappeared.  Several 
years  after  all  these  events  had  happened,  and 
after  the  country  had  settled  down  into  quiet, 
a  certain  ex-sheriff  of  Lincoln  county  chanced 
to  be  near  Uvalde,  Texas,  for  several  months. 
There  came  to  him  without  invitation,  a  former 
merchant  of  White  Oaks,  New  Mexico,  who 
told  the  officer  that  Billy  Wilson,  under  an- 
other name,  was  living  below  Uvalde,  towards 
the  Mexican  frontier.  He  stated  that  Wilson 
had  been  a  cow  hand,  a  ranch  foreman  and  cow 
man,  was  now  doing  well,  had  resigned  all  his 
bad  habits,  and  was  a  good  citizen.  He  stated 
that  Wilson  had  heard  of  the  officer's  presence 
and  asked  whether  the  latter  would  not  forego 
following  up  a  reformed  man  on  the  old  charges 
of  another  and  different  day.  The  officer  re- 
plied at  once  that  if  Wilson  was  indeed  leading  a 
right  life,  and  did  not  intend  to  go  bad  again,  he 
would  not  only  leave  him  alone,  but  would  en- 
deavor to  secure  for  him  a  pardon  from  the 
president  of  the  United  States.  Less  than  six 
months  from  that  time,  this  pardon,  signed  by 
President  Grover  Cleveland,  was  in  the  posses- 
sion of  this  officer,  in  his  office  in  a  Rio  Grande 


282  The  Story  of 

town  of  New  Mexico.  A  telegram  was  sent  to 
Billy  Wilson,  and  he  was  brave  man  enough  to 
come  and  take  his  chances.  The  officer,  with- 
out much  speech,  went  over  to  his  safe,  took 
out  the  signed  pardon  from  the  president,  and 
handed  it  to  Wilson.  The  latter  trembled  and 
broke  into  tears  as  he  took  the  paper.  "If 
you  ever  need  my  life,"  said  he,  "count  on  me. 
And  I'll  never  go  back  on  this  I"  as  he  touched 
the  executive  pardon.  He  went  back  to  Texas, 
and  is  living  there  to-day,  a  good  citizen.  It 
would  be  wrong  to  mention  names  in  an  inci- 
dent like  this. 

Tom  O'Folliard  was  another  noted  charac- 
ter. He  was  something  of  a  gun  expert,  in  his 
own  belief,  at  least.  He  was  a  man  of  medium 
height  and  dark  complexion,  and  of  no  very 
great  amount  of  mental  capacity.  He  came 
into  the  lower  range  from  somewhere  east, 
probably  from  Texas,  and  little  is  known  of 
him  except  that  he  was  in  some  fighting,  and 
that  he  is  buried  at  Sumner  with  Bowdre  and 
the  Kid.  He  got  away  with  one  or  two  bluffs 
and  encounters,  and  came  to  think  that  he  was 
as  good  as  the  best  of  men,  or  rather  as  bad  as 
the  worst ;  for  he  was  one  of  those  who  wanted 
a  reputation  as  a  bad  man. 

Tom  Pickett  was  another  not  far  from  the 


The   Outlaw  283 

O'Folliard  class,  ambitious  to  be  thought  wild 
and  woolly  and  hard  to  curry;  which  he  was 
not,  when  it  came  to  the  real  currying,  as 
events  proved.  He  was  a  very  pretty  handler 
of  a  gun,  and  took  pride  in  his  skill  with  it.  He 
seems  to  have  behaved  well  after  the  arrest  of 
the  Kid's  gang  near  Sumner,  and  is  not  known 
in  connection  with  any  further  criminal  acts, 
though  he  still  for  a  long  time  wore  two  guns 
in  the  settlements.  Once  a  well-known  sheriff 
happened,  by  mere  chance,  to  be  in  his  town, 
not  knowing  Pickett  was  there.  The  latter 
literally  took  to  the  woods,  thinking  something 
was  on  foot  in  which  he  was  concerned.  Be- 
ing reminded  that  he  had  lost  an  opportunity 
to  show  how  bad  he  was  he  explained:  "I  don't 
want  anything  to  do  with  that  long-legs." 
Pickett,  no  doubt,  settled  down  and  became  a 
useful  man.  Indeed,  although  it  seems  a 
strange  thing  to  say,  it  is  the  truth  that  much 
of  the  old  wildness  of  that  border  was  a  matter 
of  general  custom,  one  might  also  say  of  habit. 
The  surroundings  were  wild,  and  men  got  to 
running  wild.  When  times  changed,  some  of 
them  also  changed,  and  frequently  showed  that 
after  all  they  could  settle  down  to  work  and 
lead  decent  lives.  Lawlessness  is  sometimes  less 
a  matter  of  temperament  than  of  surroundings. 


284  The  Story  of 


Chapter  XVII 

The  Fight  of  Buckshot  Roberts — Encounter 
Between  a  Crippled  Ex-Soldier  and  the  Band 
of  Billy  the  Kid — One  Man  Against  Thirteen. 

NEXT  to  the  fight  of  Wild  Bill  with 
the    McCandlas   gang,    the   fight   of 
Buckshot   Roberts  at  Blazer's  Mill, 
on  the  Mescalero   Indian   reservation,   is  per- 
haps the  most  remarkable  combat  of  one  man 
against  odds  ever  known  in  the  West.     The 
latter  affair  is  little  known,  but  deserves  its 
record. 

Buckshot  Roberts  was  one  of  those  men  who 
appeared  on  the  frontier  and  gave  little  his- 
tory of  their  own  past.  He  came  West  from 
Texas,  but  it  is  thought  that  he  was  born  far- 
ther east  than  the  Lone  Star  state.  He  was 
long  in  the  United  States  army,  where  he 
reached  the  rank  of  sergeant  before  his  dis- 
charge ;  after  which  he  lingered  on  the  frontier, 


The  Outlaw  285 

as  did  very  many  soldiers  of  that  day.  He  was 
at  one  time  a  member  of  the  famous  Texas 
rangers,  and  had  reputation  as  an  Indian  fighter. 
He  had  been  badly  shot  by  the  Comanches. 
Again,  he  was  on  the  other  side,  against  the 
rangers,  and  once  stood  off  twenty-five  of  them, 
although  nearly  killed  in  this  encounter.  From 
these  wounds  he  was  so  badly  crippled  in  his 
right  arm  that  he  could  not  lift  a  rifle  to  his 
shoulder.  He  was  usually  known  as  "Buck- 
shot" Roberts  because  of  the  nature  of  his 
wounds. 

Roberts  took  up  a  little  ranch  in  the  beautiful 
Ruidoso  valley  of  central  New  Mexico,  one 
of  the  most  charming  spots  in  the  world;  and 
all  he  asked  was  to  be  let  alone,  for  he  seemed 
able  to  get  along,  and  not  afraid  of  work. 
When  the  Lincoln  County  War  broke  out,  he 
was  recognized  as  a  friend  of  Major  Murphy, 
one  of  the  local  faction  leaders;  but  when  the 
fighting  men  curtly  told  him  it  was  about  time 
for  him  to  choose  his  side,  he  as  curtly  replied 
that  he  intended  to  take  neither  side;  that  he 
had  seen  fighting  enough  in  his  time,  and  would 
fight  no  man's  battle  for  him.  This  for  the 
time  and  place  was  treason,  and  punishable  with 
death.  Roberts'  friends  told  him  that  Billy 


286  The  Story  of 

the  Kid  and  Dick  Brewer  intended  to  kill  him, 
and  advised  him  to  leave  the  country. 

It  is  said  that  Roberts  had  closed  out  his 
affairs  and  was  preparing  to  leave  the  country, 
when  he  heard  that  the  gang  was  looking  for 
him,  and  that  he  then  gave  them  opportunity 
to  find  him.  Others  say  that  he  went  up  to 
Blazer's  Mill  to  meet  there  a  friend  of  his  by 
the  name  of  Kitts,  who,  he  heard,  had  been  shot 
and  badly  wounded.  There  is  other  rumor  that 
he  went  up  to  Blazer's  Mill  to  have  a  personal 
encounter  with  Major  Godfrey,  with  whom 
there  had  been  some  altercation.  There  is  a 
further  absurd  story  that  he  went  for  the  pur- 
pose of  killing  Billy  the  Kid,  and  getting  the 
reward  which  was  offered  for  him.  These  lat- 
ter things  are  unlikely.  The  probable  truth  is 
that  he,  being  a  brave  man,  though  fully  de- 
termined to  leave  the  country,  simply  found  it 
written  in  his  creed  to  go  up  to  Blazer's  Mill 
to  see  his  supposedly  wounded  friend,  and  also 
to  see  what  there  was  in  the  threats  which  he 
had  heard. 

There  are  living  three  eye-witnesses  of  what 
happened  at  that  time :  Frank  and  George  Coe, 
ranchers  on  the  Ruidoso  to-day,  and  Johnnie 
Patten,  cook  on  Carrizzo  ranch.  Patten  was  an 


The  Outlaw  287 

ex-soldier  of  H  Troop,  Third  Cavalry,  and  was 
mustered  out  at  Fort  Stanton  in  1869.  At  the 
time  of  the  Roberts  fight,  he  was  running  the 
sawmill  for  Dr.  Blazer.  Frank  Coe  says  that 
he  himself  was  attempting  to  act  as  peacemaker, 
and  that  he  tried  to  get  Roberts  to  give  up  his 
arms  and  not  make  any  fight.  Patten  says  that 
he  himself,  at  the  peril  of  his  life,  had  warned 
Roberts  that  Dick  Brewer,  the  Kid,  and  his 
gang  intended  to  kill  him.  It  is  certain  that 
when  Roberts  came  riding  up  on  a  mule,  still 
wet  from  the  fording  of  the  Tularosa  river,  he 
met  there  Dick  Brewer,  Billy  the  Kid,  George 
Coe,  Frank  Coe,  Charlie  Bowdre,  Doc  Middle- 
ton,  one  Scroggins,  and  Dirty  Steve  (Stephen 
Stevens) ,  with  others,  to  the  number  of  thirteen 
in  all.  These  men  still  claimed  to  be  a  posse, 
and  were  under  Dick  Brewer,  "special  con- 
stable." 

The  Brewer  party  withdrew  to  the  rear  of 
the  house.  Frank  Coe  parleyed  with  Roberts 
at  one  side.  Kate  Godfrey,  daughter  of  Major 
Godfrey,  protested  at  what  she  knew  was  the 
purpose  of  Brewer  and  his  gang.  Dick  Brewer 
said  to  his  men,  "Don't  do  anything  to  him 
now.  Coax  him  up  the  road  a  way." 

Roberts  declined  to  give  up  his  weapons  to 


288  The  Story  of 

Frank  Coe.  He  stood  near  the  door,  outside 
the  house.  Then,  as  it  is  told  by  Johnnie  Pat- 
ten, who  saw  it  all,  there  suddenly  came  around 
upon  him  from  behind  the  house  the  gang  of  the 
Kid,  all  gun  fighters,  each  opening  fire  as  he 
came.  The  gritty  little  man  gave  back  not  a 
step  toward  the  open  door.  Crippled  by  his  old 
wounds  so  that  he  could  not  raise  his  rifle  to  his 
shoulder,  he  worked  the  lever  from  his  hip. 
Here  were  a  dozen  men,  the  best  fighting  men 
of  all  that  wild  country,  shooting  at  him  at  a 
distance  of  not  a  dozen  feet;  yet  he  shot  Jack 
Middleton  through  the  lungs,  though  failing  to 
kill  him.  He  shot  a  finger  off  the  hand  of  George 
Coe,  who  then  left  the  fight.  Roberts  then  half 
stepped  forward  and  pushed  his  gun  against 
the  stomach  of  Billy  the  Kid.  For  some  reason 
the  piece  failed  to  fire,  and  the  Kid  was  saved 
by  the  narrowest  escape  he  ever  had  in  his  life. 
Charlie  Bowdre  now  appeared  around  the  cor- 
ner of  the  house,  and  Roberts  fired  at  him  next. 
His  bullet  struck  Bowdre  in  the  belt,  and  cut 
the  belt  off  from  him.  Almost  at  the  same  time, 
Bowdre  fired  at  him  and  shot  him  through  the 
body.  He  did  not  drop,  but  staggered  back 
against  the  wall ;  and  so  he  stood  there,  crippled 
of  old  and  now  wounded  to  death,  but  so  fierce 


The  Outlaw  289 

a  human  tiger  that  his  very  looks  struck  dismay 
into  this  gang  of  professional  fighters.  They 
actually  withdrew  around  the  house  and  left 
him  there! 

Each  claimed  the  credit  for  having  shot  the 
victim.  "No,"  said  Charlie  Bowdre,  "I  shot 
him  myself.  I  dusted  him  on  both  sides.  I 
saw  the  dust  fly  out  on  both  sides  of  his  coat, 
where  my  bullet  went  clean  through  him." 
They  argued,  but  they  did  not  go  around  the 
house  again. 

Roberts  now  staggered  back  into  the  house. 
He  threw  down  his  own  Winchester  and  picked 
up  a  heavy  Sharps'  rifle  which  belonged  to  Dr. 
Appel,  and  which  he  found  there,  in  Dr. 
Blazer's  room.  Brewer  told  Dr.  Blazer  to 
bring  Roberts  out,  but,  like  a  man,  Blazer 
refused.  Roberts  pulled  a  mattress  off  the  bed 
to  the  floor  and  threw  himself  down  upon  it 
near  an  open  window  in  the  front  of  the  house. 
The  gang  had  scattered,  surrounding  the  house. 
Dick  Brewer  had  taken  refuge  behind  a  thirty- 
inch  sawlog  near  the  mill,  just  one  hundred  and 
forty  steps  from  the  window  near  which  this 
fierce  little  fighting  man  was  lying,  wounded 
to  death.  Brewer  raised  his  head  just  above  the 
top  of  the  sawlog,  so  that  he  could  see  what 


290  The  Story  of 

Roberts  was  doing.  His  eyes  were  barely  visi- 
ble above  the  top  of  the  log,  yet  at  that  distance 
the  heavy  bullet  from  Roberts'  buffalo  gun 
struck  him  in  the  eye  and  blew  off  the  top  of  his 
head. 

Billy  the  Kid  was  now  leader  of  the  posse. 
His  first  act  was  to  call  his  men  together  and 
ride  away  from  the  spot,  his  whole  outfit 
whipped  by  a  single  man !  There  was  a  corpse 
behind  them,  and  wounded  men  with  them. 

Thirty-six  hours  later  there  was  another 
corpse  at  Blazer's  Mill.  The  doctor,  brought 
over  from  Fort  Stanton,  could  do  nothing  for 
Roberts,  and  he  died  in  agony.  Johnnie  Patten, 
sawyer  and  rough  carpenter,  made  one  big  cof- 
fin, and  in  this  the  two,  Brewer  and  Roberts, 
were  buried  side  by  side.  "I  couldn't  make  a 
very  good  coffin,"  says  Patten,  "so  I  built  it  in 
the  shape  of  a  big  V,  with  no  end  piece  at  the 
foot.  We  just  put  them  both  in  together." 
And  there  they  lie  to-day,  grim  grave-company, 
according  to  the  report  of  this  eye-witness,  who 
would  seem  to  be  in  a  position  indicating  accu- 
racy. Emil  Blazer,  a  son  of  Dr.  Blazer,  still 
lives  on  the  site  of  this  fierce  little  battle,  and  he 
says  that  the  two  dead  men  were  buried  sepa- 
rately, but  side  by  side,  Brewer  to  the  right  of 


The  Outlaw  291 

Roberts.  The  little  graveyard  holds  a  few 
other  graves,  none  with  headboards  or  records, 
and  grass  now  grows  above  them  all. 

The  building  where  Roberts  stood  at  bay  is 
now  gone,  and  another  adobe  is  erected  a  little 
farther  back  from  the  raceway  that  once  fed 
the  old  mountain  sawmill,  but  which  now  is 
not  used  as  of  yore.  The  old  flume  still  exists 
where  the  water  ran  over  onto  the  wheel,  and 
the  site  of  the  old  mill,  which  is  now  also  torn 
down,  is  easily  traceable.  When  the  author 
visited  the  spot  in  the  fall  of  1905,  all  these 
points  were  verified  and  the  distances  measured. 
It  was  a  long  shot  that  Roberts  made,  and  down 
hill.  The  vitality  of  the  man  who  made  it,  his 
courage,  and  his  tenacity  alike  of  life  and  of 
purpose  against  such  odds  make  Roberts  a  man 
remembered  with  admiration  even  to-day  in 
that  once  bloody  region. 


292  The  Story  of 


Chapter  XVIII 

The  Man  Hunt—  The  Western  Peace  Officer, 
a  Quiet  Citizen  Who  Works  for  a  Salary  and 
Risks  His  Life — The  Trade  of  Man  Hunting 
— Biography  of  Pat  Garrett,  a  Typical  Fron- 
tier Sheriff.  :::::::: 

THE  deeds  of  the  Western  sheriff  have 
for  the  most  part  gone  unchronicled, 
or  have  luridly  been  set  forth  in  fic- 
tion as  incidents  of  blood,  interesting  only  be- 
cause of  their  bloodiness.  The  frontier  officer 
himself,  usually  not  a  man  to  boast  of  his  own 
acts,  has  quietly  stepped  into  the  background 
of  the  past,  and  has  been  replaced  by  others 
who  more  loudly  proclaim  their  prominence  in 
the  advancement  of  civilization.  Yet  the  typi- 
cal frontier  sheriff,  the  good  man  who  went 
after  bad  men,  and  made  it  safe  for  men  to  live 
and  own  property  and  to  establish  homes  and  to 
build  up  a  society  and  a  country  and  a  govern- 


The  Outlaw  293 

ment,  is  a  historical  character  of  great  interest. 
Among  very  many  good  ones,  we  shall  perhaps 
best  get  at  the  type  of  all  by  giving  the  story 
of  one;  and  we  shall  also  learn  something  of 
the  dangerous  business  of  man  hunting  in  a 
region  filled  with  men  who  must  be  hunted 
down. 

Patrick  Floyd  Garrett,  better  known  as  Pat 
Garrett,  was  a  Southerner  by  birth.  He  was 
born  in  Chambers  county,  Alabama,  June  5, 
1850.  In  1856,  his  parents  moved  to  Clai- 
borne  parish,  Louisiana,  where  his  father  was 
a  large  landowner,  and  of  course  at  that  time 
and  place,  a  slave  owner,  and  among  the  bitter 
opponents  of  the  new  regime  which  followed 
the  civil  war.  When  young  Garrett's  father 
died,  the  large  estates  dwindled  under  bad  man- 
agement; and  when  within  a  short  time  the 
mother  followed  her  husband  to  the  grave,  the 
family  resources,  affected  by  the  war,  became 
involved,  although  the  two  Garrett  plantations 
embraced  nearly  three  thousand  acres  of  rich 
Louisiana  soil.  On  January  25,  1869,  Pat  Gar- 
rett, a  tall  and  slender  youth  of  eighteen,  set 
out  to  seek  his  fortunes  in  the  wild  West,  with 
no  resources  but  such  as  lay  in  his  brains  and 
body. 


294  The  Story  of 

He  went  to  Lancaster,  in  Dallas  county, 
Texas.  A  big  ranch  owner  in  southern  Texas 
wanted  men,  and  Pat  Garrett  packed  up  and 
went  home  with  him.  The  world  was  new  to 
him,  however,  and  he  went  off  with  the  north- 
bound cows,  like  many  another  youngster  of 
the  time.  His  herd  was  made  up  at  Eagle 
Lake,  and  he  only  accompanied  the  drive  as 
far  north  as  Denison.  There  he  began  to  get 
uneasy,  hearing  of  the  delights  of  the  still 
wilder  life  of  the  buffalo  hunters  on  the  great 
plains  which  lay  to  the  west,  in  the  Panhandle 
of  Texas.  For  three  winters,  1875  to  1877, 
he  was  in  and  out  between  the  buffalo  range  and 
the  settlements,  by  this  time  well  wedded  to 
frontier  life. 

In  the  fall  of  1877,  he  went  West  once  more, 
and  this  time  kept  on  going  west.  With  two 
hardy  companions,  he  pushed  on  entirely  across 
the  wild  and  unknown  Panhandle  country,  leav- 
ing the  wagons  near  what  was  known  as  the 
"Yellow  Houses/*  and  never  returning  to  them. 
His  blankets,  personal  belongings,  etc.,  he  never 
saw  again.  He  and  his  friends  had  their  heavy 
Sharps'  rifles,  plenty  of  powder  and  lead,  and 
their  reloading  tools,  and  they  had  nothing  else. 
Their  beds  they  made  of  their  saddle  blankets, 


PAT  F.   GARRETT 

The  most  famous  peace  officer  of  the  Southwest 


The   Outlaw  295 

and  their  food  they  killed  from  the  wild  herds. 
For  their  love  of  adventure,  they  rode  on  across 
an  unknown  country,  until  finally  they  arrived 
at  the  little  Mexican  settlement  of  Fort  Sumner, 
on  the  Pecos  river,  in  the  month  of  February, 
1878. 

Pat  and  his  friends  were  hungry,  but  all  the 
cash  they  could  find  was  just  one  dollar  and  a 
half  between  them.  They  gave  it  to  Pat  and 
sent  him  over  to  the  store  to  see  about  eating. 
He  asked  the  price  of  meals,  and  they  told  him 
fifty  cents  per  meal.  They  would  permit  them 
to  eat  but  once.  He  concluded  to  buy  a  dollar 
and  a  half's  worth  of  flour  and  bacon,  which 
would  last  for  two  or  three  meals.  He  joined 
his  friends,  and  they  went  into  camp  on  the 
river  bank,  where  they  cooked  and  ate,  per- 
fectly happy  and  quite  careless  about  the  future. 

As  they  finished  .their  breakfast,  they  saw 
up  the  river  the  dust  of  a  cattle  herd,  and  noted 
that  a  party  were  working  a  herd,  cutting  out 
cattle  for  some  purpose  or  other. 

"Go  up  there  and  get  a  job,"  said  Pat  to 
one  of  the  boys.  The  latter  did  go  up,  but 
came  back  reporting  that  the  boss  did  not  want 
any  help. 

"Well,  he's  got  to  have  help,"  said  Pat.    So 


296  The  Story  of 

saying,  he  arose  and  started  up  stream  him- 
self. 

Garrett  was  at  that  time,  as  has  been  said, 
of  very  great  height,  six  feet  four  and  one-half 
inches,  and  very  slender.  Unable  to  get 
trousers  long  enough  for  his  legs,  he  had  pieced 
down  his  best  pair  with  about  three  feet  of 
buffalo  leggins  with  the  hair  out.  Gaunt,  dusty, 
and  unshaven,  he  looked  hard,  and  when  he 
approached  the  herd  owner  and  asked  for  work, 
the  other  was  as  much  alarmed  as  pleased.  He 
declined  again,  but  Pat  firmly  told  him  he  had 
come  to  go  to  work,  and  was  sorry,  but  it  could 
not  be  helped.  Something  in  the  quiet  voice 
of  Garrett  seemed  to  arrest  the  attention  of  the 
cow  man.  "What  can  you  do,  Lengthy?"  he 
asked. 

"Ride  anything  with  hair,  and  rope  better 
than  any  man  youVe  got  here,"  answered  Gar- 
rett, casting  a  critical  glance  at  the  other  men. 

The  cow  man  hesitated  a  moment  and  then 
said,  "Get  in."  Pat  got  in.  He  stayed  in. 
Two  years  later  he  was  still  at  Fort  Sumner, 
and  married. 

Garrett  moved  down  from  Fort  Sumner  soon 
after  his  marriage,  and  settled  a  mile  east  of 
what  is  now  the  flourishing  city  of  Roswell,  at 


The  Outlaw  297 

a  spring  on  the  bank  of  the  Hondo,  and  in  the 
middle  of  what  was  then  the  virgin  plains. 
Here  he  picked  up  land,  until  he  had  in  all 
more  than  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  acres.  If 
he  owned  it  now,  he  would  be  worth  a  half 
million  dollars. 

He  was  not,  however,  to  live  the  steady  life 
of  the  frontier  farmer.  His  friend,  Captain 
J.  C.  Lea,  of  Roswell,  came  to  him  and  asked 
if  he  would  run  as  sheriff  of  Lincoln  county. 
Garrett  consented  and  was  elected.  He  was 
warned  not  to  take  this  office,  and  word  was 
sent  to  him  by  the  bands  of  hard-riding  out- 
laws of  that  region  that  if  he  attempted  to 
serve  any  processes  on  them  he  would  be  killed. 
He  paid  no  attention  to  this,  and,  as  he  was 
still  an  unknown  quantity  in  the  country,  which 
was  new  and  thinly  settled,  he  seemed  sure  to 
be  killed.  He  won  the  absolute  confidence  of 
the  governor,  who  told  him  to  go  ahead,  not  to 
stand  on  technicalities,  but  to  break  up  the 
gang  that  had  been  rendering  life  and  property 
unsafe  for  years  and  making  the  territory  a 
mockery  of  civilization.  If  the  truth  were 
known,  it  might  perhaps  be  found  that  some- 
times Garrett  arrested  a  bad  man  and  got  his 
warrant  for  it  later,  when  he  went  to  the  settle- 


298  The  Story  of 

ments.  He  found  a  straight  six-shooter  the 
best  sort  of  warrant,  and  in  effect  he  took  the 
matter  of  establishing  a  government  in  south- 
western New  Mexico  in  his  own  hands,  and  did 
it  in  his  own  way.  He  was  the  whole  machin- 
ery of  the  law.  Sometimes  he  boarded  his  pris- 
oners out  of  his  own  pocket.  He  himself  was 
the  state!  His  word  was  good,  even  to  the 
worst  cutthroat  that  ever  he  captured.  Often 
he  had  in  his  care  prisoners  whom,  under  the 
law,  he  could  not  legally  have  held,  had  they 
been  demanded  of  him;  but  he  held  them  in 
spite  of  any  demand;  and  the  worst  prisoner 
on  that  border  knew  that  he  was  safe  in  Pat 
Garrett's  hands,  no  matter  what  happened,  and 
that  if  Pat  said  he  would  take  him  through  to 
any  given  point,  he  would  take  him  through. 

After  he  had  finished,  his  first  season  of  work 
as  sheriff  and  as  United  States  marshal,  Gar- 
rett  ranched  it  for  a  time.  In  1884,  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  criminal-taker  being  now  a  wide  one, 
he  organized  and  took  charge  of  a  company  of 
Texas  rangers  in  Wheeler  county,  Texas,  and 
made  Atacosa  and  thereabouts  headquarters  for 
a  year  and  a  half.  So  great  became  his  fame 
now  as  a  man-taker  that  he  was  employed  to 
manage  the  affairs  of  a  cattle  detective  agency; 


The  Outlaw  299 

it  being  now  so  far  along  in  civilization  that 
men  were  beginning  to  be  careful  about  their 
cows.  He  was  offered  ten  thousand  dollars  to 
break  up  a  certain  band  of  raiders  working  in 
upper  Texas,  and  he  did  it;  but  he  found  that 
he  was  really  being  paid  to  kill  one  or  two  men, 
and  not  to  capture  them;  and,  being  unwilling 
to  act  as  the  agent  of  any  man's  revenge,  he 
quit  this  work  and  went  into  the  employment  of 
the  "V"  ranch  in  the  White  mountains.  He 
then  moved  down  to  Roswell  again,  in  the 
spring  of  1887.  Here  he  organized  the 
Pecos  Valley  Irrigation  Company.  He  was 
the  first  man  to  suspect  the  presence  of 
artesian  water  in  this  country,  where  the  great 
Spring  rivers  push  up  from  the  ground;  and 
through  his  efforts  wells  were  bored  which  revo- 
lutionized all  that  valley.  He  ran  for  sheriff 
of  Chaves  county,  and  was  defeated.  Angry 
at  his  first  reverse  in  politics,  he  pulled  up  at 
Roswell,  and  sacrificed  his  land  for  what  he 
could  get  for  it.  To-day  it  is  covered  with 
crops  and  fruits  and  worth  sixty  to  one  hundred 
dollars  an  acre. 

Garrett  now  went  back  to  Texas,  and  settled 
near  Uvalde,  where  he  engaged  once  more  in 
an  irrigation  enterprise.  He  was  here  five 


300  The  Story  of 

years,  ranching  and  losing  money.  W.  T. 
Thornton,  the  governor  of  New  Mexico,  sent 
for  him  and  asked  him  if  he  would  take  the 
office  of  sheriff  of  Donna  Ana  county,  to  fill  the 
unexpired  term  of  Numa  Raymond.  He  was 
elected  to  serve  two  subsequent  terms  as  sheriff 
of  Donna  Ana  county,  and  no  frontier  officer 
has  a  better  record  for  bravery. 

In  the  month  of  December,  1901,  President 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  who  had  heard  of  Gar- 
rett,  met  him  and  liked  him,  and  without  any 
ado  or  consultation  appointed  him  collector  of 
customs  at  El  Paso,  Texas.  Here  for  the  next 
four  years  Garrett  made  a  popular  collector, 
and  an  honest  and  fearless  one. 

The  main  reputation  gained  by  Garrett  was 
through  his  killing  the  desperado,  Billy  the  Kid. 
It  is  proper  to  set  down  here  the  chronicle  of 
that  undertaking,  because  that  will  best  serve 
to  show  the  manner  in  which  a  frontier  sheriff 
gets  a  bad  man. 

When  the  Kid  and  his  gang  killed  the 
agency  clerk,  Bernstein,  on  the  Mescalero  res- 
ervation, they  committed  a  murder  on  United 
States  government  ground  and  an  offense 
against  the  United  States  law.  A  United  States 
warrant  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Pat  Garrett, 


The  Outlaw  301 

then  deputy  United  States  marshal  and  sheriff- 
elect,  and  he  took  up  the  trail,  locating  the  men 
near  Fort  Sumner,  at  the  ranch  of  one  Brazil, 
about  nine  miles  east  of  the  settlement.  With 
the  Kid  were  Charlie  Bowdre,  Tom  O'Folliard, 
Tom  Pickett  and  Dave  Rudabaugh,  fellows  of 
like  kidney.  Rudabaugh  had  just  broken  jail 
at  Las  Vegas,  and  had  killed  his  jailer.  Not  a 
man  of  the  band  had  ever  hesitated  at  murder. 
They  were  now  eager  to  kill  Garrett  and  kept 
watch,  as  best  they  could,  on  all  his  move- 
ments. 

One  day  Garrett  and  some  of  his  improvised 
posse  were  riding  eastward  of  the  town  when 
they  jumped  Tom  O'Folliard,  who  was 
mounted  on  a  horse  that  proved  too  good  for 
them  in  a  chase  of  several  miles.  Garrett  at 
last  was  left  alone  following  O'Folliard,  and 
fired  at  him  twice.  The  latter  later  admitted 
that  he  fired  twenty  times  at  Garrett  with  his 
Winchester;  but  it  was  hard  to  do  good  shoot- 
ing from  the  saddle  at  two  or  three  hundred 
yards  range,  so  neither  man  was  hit.  O'Fol- 
liard did  not  learn  his  lesson.  A  few  nights 
later,  in  company  with  Tom  Pickett,  he  rode 
into  town.  Warned  of  his  approach,  Garrett 
with  another  man  was  waiting,  hidden  in  the 


302  The  Story  of 

shadow  of  a  building.  As  O'Folliard  rode  up, 
he  was  ordered  to  throw  up  his  hands,  but  went 
after  his  gun  instead,  and  on  the  instant  Garrett 
shot  him  through  the  body.  "You  never  heard 
a  man  scream  the  way  he  did,"  said  Garrett. 
"He  dropped  his  gun  when  he  was  hit,  but  we 
did  not  know  that,  and  as  we  ran  up  to  catch  his 
horse,  we  ordered  him  again  to  throw  up  his 
hands.  He  said  he  couldn't,  that  he  was  killed. 
We  helped  him  down  then,  and  took  him  in  the 
house.  He  died  about  forty-five  minutes  later. 
He  said  it  was  all  his  own  fault,  and  that  he 
didn't  blame  anybody.  I'd  have  killed  Tom 
Pickett  right  there,  too,"  concluded  Garrett, 
"but  one  of  my  men  shot  right  past  my  face 
and  blinded  me  for  the  moment,  so  Pickett  got 
away." 

The  remainder  of  the  Kid's  gang  were  now 
located  in  the  stone  house  above  mentioned, 
and  their  whereabouts  reported  by  the  ranch- 
man whose  house  they  had  just  vacated.  The 
man  hunt  therefore  proceeded  methodically,  and 
Garrett  and  his  men,  of  whom  he  had  only  two 
or  three  upon  whom  he  relied  as  thoroughly 
game,  surrounded  the  house  just  before  dawn. 
Garrett,  with  Jim  East  and  Tom  Emory,  crept 
up  to  the  head  of  the  ravine  which  made  up 


From  a  painting  by  John  W.  Norton 

A  TYPICAL  WESTERN  MAN   HUNT 
Pat  F.  Garrett  chasing  Tom  O'Folliard 


The  Outlaw  303 

to  the  ridge  on  which  the  fortress  of  the  out- 
laws stood.  The  early  morning  is  always  the 
best  time  for  a  surprise  of  this  sort.  It  was 
Charlie  Bowdre  who  first  came  out  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  as  he  stepped  out  of  the  door  his  career 
as  a  bad  man  ended.  Three  bullets  passed 
through  his  body.  He  stepped  back  into  the 
house,  but  only  lived  about  twenty  minutes. 
The  Kid  said  to  him,  "Charlie,  you're  killed 
anyhow.  Take  your  gun  and  go  out  and  kill 

that  long-legged  before  you  die."     He 

pulled  Bowdre's  pistol  around  in  front  of  him 
and  pushed  him  out  of  the  door.  Bowdre 
staggered  feebly  toward  the  spot  where  the 

sheriff  was  lying.     "I  wish — I  wish "  he 

began,  and  motioned  toward  the  house;  but 
he  could  not  tell  what  it  was  that  he  wished. 
He  died  on  Garrett's  blankets,  which  were  laid 
down  on  the  snow. 

Previous  to  this  Garrett  had  killed  one  horse 
at  the  door  beam  where  it  was  tied,  and  with  a 
remarkable  shot  had  cut  the  other  free,  shoot- 
ing off  the  rope  that  held  it.  These  two  shots 
he  thought  about  the  best  he  ever  made;  and 
this  is  saying  much,  for  he  was  a  phenomenal 
shot  with  rifle  or  revolver.  There  were  two 
horses  inside,  but  the  dead  horse  blocked  the 


304  The  Story  of 

door.  Pickett  now  told  the  gang  to  surrender. 
"That  fellow  will  kill  every  man  that  shows  out- 
side that  door,"  said  he,  "that's  all  about  it. 
He's  killed  O'Folliard,  and  he's  killed  Charlie, 
and  he'll  kill  us.  Let's  surrender  and  take  a 
chance  at  getting  out  again."  They  listened  to 
this,  for  the  shooting  they  had  seen  had  pretty 
well  broken  their  hearts. 

Garrett  now  sent  over  to  the  ranch  house 
for  food  for  his  men,  and  the  cooking  was  too 
much  for  the  hungry  outlaws,  who  had  had 
nothing  to  eat.  They  put  up  a  dirty  white  rag 
on  a  gun  barrel  and  offered  to  give  up.  One  by 
one,  they  came  out  and  were  disarmed.  That 
night  was  spent  at  the  Brazil  ranch,  the  pris- 
oners under  guard  and  the  body  of  Charlie 
Bowdre,  rolled  in  its  blankets,  outside  in  the 
wagon.  The  next  morning,  Bowdre  was  buried 
in  the  little  cemetery  next  to  Tom  O'Folliard. 
The  Kid  did  not  know  that  he  was  to  make  the 
next  in  the  row. 

These  men  surrendered  on  condition  that 
they  should  all  be  taken  through  to  Santa  Fe, 
and  Garrett,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  took  them 
through  Las  Vegas,  where  Rudabaugh  was 
wanted.  Half  the  town  surrounded  the  train 
in  the  depot  yards.  Garrett  told  the  Kid  that 


The  Outlaw  305 

if  the  mob  rushed  in  the  door  of  the  car  he 
would  toss  back  a  six-shooter  to  him  and  ask 
him  to  help  fight. 

"All  right,  Pat,"  said  the  Kid,  cheerfully. 
"You  and  I  can  whip  the  whole  gang  of  them, 
and  after  weVe  done  it  I'll  go  back  to  my  seat 
and  you  can  put  the  irons  on  again.  You've 
kept  your  word."  There  is  little  doubt  that 
he  would  have  done  this,  but  as  it  chanced  there 
was  no  need,  since  at  the  last  moment  deputy 
Malloy,  of  Las  Vegas,  jumped  on  the  engine 
and  pulled  the  train  out  of  the  yard. 

Billy  the  Kid  was  tried  and  condemned  to  be 
executed.  He  had  been  promised  pardon  by 
Governor  Lew  Wallace,  but  the  pardon  did  not 
come.  A  few  days  before  the  day  set  for  his 
execution,  the  Kid,  as  elsewhere  described, 
killed  the  two  deputies  who  were  guarding  him, 
and  got  back  once  more  to  his  old  stamping 
grounds  around  Fort  Sumner. 

"I  knew  now  that  I  would  have  to  kill  the 
Kid,"  said  Garrett  to  the  writer,  speaking  remi- 
niscently  of  the  bloody  scenes  as  we  lately  vis- 
ited that  country  together.  "We  both  knew 
that  it  must  be  one  or  the  other  of  us  if  we  ever 
met.  I  followed  him  up  here  to  Sumner,  as 
you  know,  with  two  deputies,  John  Poe  and 


306  The  Story  of 

'Tip'  McKinney,  and  I  killed  him  in  a  room 
up  there  at  the  edge  of  the  old  cottonwood 


avenue." 


He  spoke  of  events  now  long  gone  by.  It 
had  been  only  with  difficulty  that  we  located 
the  site  of  the  building  where  the  Kid's  gang 
had  been  taken  prisoners.  The  structure  itself 
had  been  torn  down  and  removed.  As  to  the 
old  military  post,  once  a  famous  one,  it  offered 
now  nothing  better  than  a  scene  of  desolation. 
There  was  no  longer  a  single  human  inhabitant 
there.  The  old  avenue  of  cottonwoods,  once 
four  miles  long,  was  now  ragged  and  un- 
watered,  and  the  great  parade  ground  had  gone 
back  to  sand  and  sage  brush.  We  were  obliged 
to  search  for  some  time  before  we  could  find  the 
site  of  the  old  Maxwell  house,  in  which  was 
ended  a  long  and  dangerous  man  hunt  of  the 
frontier.  Garrett  finally  located  the  place,  now 
only  a  rough  quadrangle  of  crumbled  earthen 
walls. 

"This  is  the  place,"  said  he,  pointing  to  one 
corner  of  the  grass-grown  oblong.  "Pete  Max- 
well's bed  was  right  in  this  corner  of  the  room, 
and  I  was  sitting  in  the  dark  and  talking  to 
Pete,  who  was  in  bed.  The  Kid  passed  Poe 
and  McKinney  right  over  there,  on  what  was 


The  Outlaw  307 

then  the  gallery,  and  came  through  the  door 
right  here." 

We  paused  for  a  time  and  looked  with  a 
certain  gravity  at  this  wind-swept,  desolate  spot, 
around  which  lay  the  wide,  unwinking  desert. 
About  us  were  the  ruins  of  what  had  been  a 
notable  settlement  in  its  day,  but  which  now 
had  passed  with  the.  old  frontier. 

"I  got  word  of  the  Kid  up  here  in  much  the 
way  I  had  once  before,"  resumed  Garrett  at 
length,  "and  I  followed  him,  resolved  to  get 
him  or  to  have  him  get  me.  We  rode  over  into 
the  edge  of  the  town  and  learned  that  the  Kid 
was  there,  but  of  course  we  did  not  know  which 
house  he  was  in.  Poe  went  in  to  inquire  around, 
as  he  was  not  known  there  like  myself.  He  did 
not  know  the  Kid  when  he  saw  him,  nor  did  the 
Kid  know  him. 

"It  was  a  glorious  moonlight  night;  I  can 
remember  it  perfectly  well.  Poe  and  McKin- 
ney  and  I  all  met  a  little  way  out  from  the 
edge  of  the  place.  We  decided  that  the  Kid 
was  not  far  away.  We  went  down  to  the 
houses,  and  I  put  Poe  and  McKinney  outside 
of  Pete  Maxwell's  house  and  I  went  inside. 
Right  here  was  the  door.  We  did  not  know 
it  at  that  time,  but  just  about  then  the  Kid  was 


308  The  Story  of 

lying  with  his  boots  off  in  the  house  of  an  old 
Mexican  just  across  there,  not  very  far  away 
from  Maxwell's  door.  He  told  the  Mexican, 
when  he  came  in,  to  cook  something  for  him  to 
eat.  Maxwell  had  killed  a  beef  not  long  be- 
fore, and  there  was  a  quarter  hanging  up  under 
the  porch  out  in  front.  After  a  while,  the  Kid 
got  up,  got  a  butcher  knife  from  the  old  Mexi- 
can, and  concluded  to  go  over  and  cut  himself 
off  a  piece  of  meat  from  the  quarter  at  Max- 
well's house.  This  is  how  the  story  arose  that 
he  came  into  the  house  with  his  boots  in  his 
hand  to  keep  an  appointment  with  a  Mexican 
girl. 

"The  usual  story  is  that  I  was  down  close 
to  the  wall  behind  Maxwell's  bed.  This  was 
not  the  case,  for  the  bed  was  close  against 
the  wall.  Pete  Maxwell  was  lying  in  bed,  right 
here  in  this  corner,  as  I  said.  I  was  sitting  in 
a  chair  and  leaning  over  toward  him,  as  I 
talked  in  a  low  tone.  My  right  side  was  toward 
him,  and  my  revolver  was  on  that  side.  I  did 
not  know  that  the  Kid  was  so  close  at  hand,  or, 
indeed,  know  for  sure  that  he  was  there  in  the 
settlement  at  all. 

"Maxwell  did  not  want  to  talk  very  much. 
He  knew  the  Kid  was  there,  and  knew  his  own 


The  Outlaw  309 

danger.  I  was  talking  to  him  in  Spanish,  in  a 
low  tone  of  voice,  as  I  say,  when  the  Kid  came 
over  here,  just  as  I  have  told  you.  He  saw 
Poe  and  McKinney  sitting  right  out  there  in 
the  moonlight,  but  did  not  suspect  anything. 
'Quien  es?'—Who  is  it?'— he  asked,  as  he 
passed  them.  I  heard  him  speak  and  saw  him 
come  backing  into  the  room,  facing  toward  Poe 
and  McKinney.  He  could  not  see  me,  as  it 
was  dark  in  the  room,  but  he  came  up  to  the 
bed  where  Maxwell  was  lying  and  where  I  was 
sitting.  He  seemed  to  think  something  might 
not  be  quite  right.  He  had  in  his  hand  his 
revolver,  a  self-cocking  .41.  He  could  not  see 
my  face,  and  he  had  not  heard  my  voice,  or  he 
would  have  known  me. 

"The  Kid  stepped  up  to  the  bedside  and  laid 
his  left  hand  on  the  bed  and  bent  over  Max- 
well. He  saw  me  sitting  there  in  the  half  dark- 
ness, but  did  not  recognize  me,  as  I  was  sitting 
down.  My  height  would  have  betrayed  me  had 
I  been  standing.  Tete,  Quien  es?'  he  asked 
in  a  low  tone  of  voice;  and  he  half  motioned 
toward  me  with  his  six-shooter.  That  was 
when  I  looked  across  into  eternity.  It  wasn't 
far  to  go. 

"That  was  exactly  how  the  thing  was.     I 


310  The  Story  of 

gave  neither  Maxwell  nor  the  Kid  time  for  any- 
thing farther.  There  flashed  over  my  mind 
at  once  one  thought,  and  it  was  that  I  had 
to  shoot  and  shoot  at  once,  and  that  my  shot 
must  go  to  the  mark  the  first  time.  I  knew 
the  Kid  would  kill  me  in  a  flash  if  I  did  not 
kill  him. 

"Just  as  he  spoke  and  motioned  toward  me, 
I  dropped  over  to  the  left  and  rather  down, 
going  after  my  gun  with  my  right  hand  as  I 
did  so.  As  I  fired,  the  Kid  dropped  back.  I 
had  caught  him  just  about  the  heart.  His  pis- 
tol, already  pointed  toward  me,  went  off  as  he 
fell,  but  he  fired  high.  As  I  sprang  up,  I  fired 
once  more,  but  did  not  hit  him,  and  did  not 
need  to,  for  he  was  dead. 

"I  don't  know  that  he  ever  knew  who  it  was 
that  killed  him.  He  could  not  see  me  in  the 
darkness.  He  may  have  seen  me  stoop  over 
and  pull.  If  he  had  had  the  least  suspicion  who 
it  was,  he  would  have  shot  as  soon  as  he  saw 
me.  When  he  came  to  the  bed,  I  knew  who  he 
was.  The  rest  happened  as  I  have  told  you. 
There  is  no  other  story  about  the  killing  of 
Billy  the  Kid  which  is  the  truth.  It  is  also  un- 
true that  his  body  was  ever  removed  from  Fort 
Sumner.  It  lies  there  to-day,  and  I'll  show  you 


The  Outlaw  311 

where  we  buried  him.  I  laid  him  out  myself, 
in  this  house  here,  and  I  ought  to  know." 

Twenty-five  years  of  time  had  done  their 
work  in  all  that  country,  as  we  learned  when  we 
entered  the  little  barbed-wire  enclosure  of  the 
cemetery  where  the  Kid  and  his  fellows  were 
buried.  There  are  no  headstones  in  this  ceme- 
tery, and  no  sacristan  holds  its  records.  Again 
Garrett  had  to  search  in  the  salt  grass  and 
greasewood.  "Here  is  the  place,"  said  he,  at 
length.  "We  buried  them  all  in  a  row.  The 
first  grave  is  the  Kid's,  and  next  to  him  is 
Bowdre,  and  then  O'Folliard." 

Here  was  the  sole  remaining  record  of  the 
man  hunt's  end.  So  passes  the  glory  of  the 
world!  In  this  desolate  resting-place,  in  a 
wind-swept  and  forgotten  graveyard,  rests  all 
the  remaining  fame  of  certain  bad  men  who  in 
their  time  were  bandit  kings,  who  ruled  by 
terror  over  half  a  Western  territory.  Even 
the  headboard  which  once  stood  at  the  Kid's 
grave — and  which  was  once  riddled  with  bul- 
lets by  cowards  who  would  not  have  dared  to 
shoot  that  close  to  him  had  he  been  alive — was 
gone.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  graves  will  be 
visited  again  by  any  one  who  knows  their  local- 
ity. Garrett  looked  at  them  in  silence  for  a 


312  The  Story  of 

time,  then,  turning,  went  to  the  buckboard  for 
a  drink  at  the  canteen.  "Well,"  said  he,  quietly, 
"here's  to  the  boys,  anyway.  If  there  is  any 
other  life,  I  hope  they'll  make  better  use  of  it 
than  they  did  of  the  one  I  put  them  out  of." 


The  Outlaw  313 


Chapter  XIX 

Bad  Men  of  Texas — The  Lone  Star  State 
Always  a  Producer  of  Fighters — A  Long  His- 
tory of  Border  War — The  Death  of  Ben 
Thompson.  :::::::: 

A  REVIEW  of  the  story  of  the  Ameri- 
can desperado  will  show  that  he  has 
always  been  most  numerous  at  the  edge 
of  things,  where  there  was  a  frontier,  a  debata- 
ble ground  between  civilization  and  lawless- 
ness, or  a  border  between  opposing  nations  or 
sections.  He  does  not  wholly  pass  away  with 
the  coming  of  the  law,  but  his  home  is  essen- 
tially in  a  new  and  undeveloped  condition  of 
society.  The  edge  between  East  and  West, 
between  North  and  South,  made  the  territory 
of  the  bad  man  of  the  American  interior. 

The  far  Southwest  was  the  oldest  of  all 
American  frontiers,  and  the  stubbornest.  We 
have  never,  as  a  nation,  been  at  war  with  any 


314  The  Story  of 

other  nation  whose  territory  has  adjoined  our 
own  except  in  the  case  of  Mexico;  and  long 
before  we  went  to  war  as  a  people  against 
Mexico,  Texas  had  been  at  war  with  her  as  a 
state,  or  rather  as  a  population  and  a  race 
against  another  race.  The  frontier  of  the  Rio 
Grande  Is  one  of  the  bloodiest  of  the  world, 
and  was  such  long  before  Texas  was  finally 
admitted  to  the  union.  There  was  never  any 
new  territory  settled  by  so  vigorous  and  bellig- 
erent a  population  as  that  which  first  found  and 
defended  the  great  empire  of  the  Lone  Star. 
Her  early  men  were,  without  exception,  fighters, 
and  she  has  bred  fighters  ever  since. 

The  allurement  which  the  unsettled  lands 
of  the  Southwest  had  for  the  young  men  of  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century  lay  largely  in  the 
appeal  of  excitement  and  adventure,  with  a 
large  possibility  of  worldly  gain  as  well.  The 
men  of  the  South  who  drifted  down  the  old 
River  Road  across  Mississippi  and  Louisiana 
were  shrewd  in  their  day  and  generation.  They 
knew  that  eventually  Texas  would  be  taken 
away  from  Mexico,  and  taken  by  force.  Her 
vast  riches  would  belong  to  those  who  had 
earned  them.  Men  of  the  South  were  even  then 
hunting  for  another  West,  and  here  was  a 


The  Outlaw  315 

mighty  one.  The  call  came  back  that  the  fight- 
ing was  good  all  along  the  line ;  and  the  fighting 
men  of  all  the  South,  from  Virginia  to  Louisi- 
ana, fathers  and  sons  of  the  boldest  and  bravest 
of  Southern  families,  pressed  on  and  out  to 
take  a  hand.  They  were  scattered  and  far 
from  numerous  when  they  united  and  demanded 
a  government  of  their  own,  independent  of  the 
far-off  and  inefficient  head  of  the  Mexican  law. 
They  did  not  want  Coahuila  as  their  country, 
but  Texas,  and  asked  a  government  of  their 
own.  Lawless  as  they  were,  they  wanted  a  real 
law,  a  law  of  Saxon  right  and  justice. 

Men  like  Crockett,  Fannin,  Travers  and 
Bowie  were  influenced  half  by  political  ambi- 
tion and  half  by  love  of  adventure  when  they 
moved  across  the  plains  of  eastern  Texas  and 
took  up  their  abode  on  the  firing  line  of  the 
Mexican  border.  If  you  seek  a  historic  band 
of  bad  men,  fighting  men  of  the  bitterest  Bare- 
sark type,  look  at  the  immortal  defenders  of 
the  Alamo.  Some  of  them  were,  in  the  light  of 
calm  analysis,  little  better  than  guerrillas;  but 
every  man  was  a  hero.  They  all  had  a  chance 
to  escape,  to  go  out  and  join  Sam  Houston 
farther  to  the  east;  but  they  refused  to  a  man, 
and,  plying  the  border  weapons  as  none  but 


316  The  Story  of 

such  as  themselves  might,  they  died,  full  of  the 
glory  of  battle;  not  in  ranks  and  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  with  banners  and  music  to  cheer  them, 
but  each  for  himself  and  hand  to  hand  with  his 
enemy,  a  desperate  fighting  man. 

The  early  men  of  Texas  for  generations 
fought  Mexicans  and  Indians  in  turn.  The 
country  was  too  vast  for  any  system  of  law. 
Each  man  had  learned  to  depend  upon  himself. 
Each  cabin  kept  a  rifle  and  pistol  for  each  male 
old  enough  to  bear  them,  and  each  boy,  as  he 
grew  up,  was  skilled  in  weapons  and  used  to 
the  thought  that  the  only  arbitrament  among 
men  was  that  of  weapons.  Part  of  the  popula- 
tion, appreciating  the  exemptions  here  to  be 
found,  was,  without  doubt,  criminal;  made  up 
of  men  who  had  fled,  for  reasons  of  their  own, 
from  older  regions.  These  in  time  required  the 
attention  of  the  law;  and  the  armed  bodies  of 
hard-riding  Texas  rangers,  a  remedy  born  of 
necessity,  appeared  as  the  executives  of  the  law. 

The  cattle  days  saw  the  wild  times  of  the 
border  prolonged.  The  buffalo  range  caught 
its  quota  of  hard  riders  and  hard  shooters. 
And  always  the  apparently  exhaustless  empires 
of  new  and  unsettled  lands — an  enormous,  un- 
tracked  empire  of  the  wild — beckoned  on  and 


The  Outlaw  317 

on ;  so  that  men  in  the  most  densely  settled  sec- 
tions were  very  far  apart,  and  so  that  the  law 
as  a  guardian  could  not  be  depended  upon.  It 
was  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  name  of 
Texas  became  the  synonym  for  savagery.  That 
was  for  a  long  time  the  wildest  region  within 
our  national  confines.  Many  men  who  attained 
fame  as  fighters  along  the  Pecos  and  Rio 
Grande  and  Gila  and  Colorado  came  across  the 
borders  from  Texas.  Others  slipped  north  into 
the  Indian  Nations,  and  left  their  mark  there. 
Some  went  to  the  mines  of  the  Rockies,  or  the 
cattle  ranges  from  Montana  to  Arizona.  Many 
stayed  at  home,  and  finished  their  eventful  lives 
there  in  the  usual  fashion — killing  now  and 
again,  then  oftener,  until  at  length  they  killed 
once  too  often  and  got  hanged;  or  not  often 
enough  once,  and  so  got  shot. 

To  undertake  to  give  even  the  most  superfi- 
cial study  to  a  field  so  vast  as  this  would  require 
a  dozen  times  the  space  we  may  afford,  and 
would  lead  us  far  into  matters  of  history  other 
than  those  intended.  We  can  only  point  out 
that  the  men  of  the  Lone  Star  state  left  their 
stamp  as  horsemen  and  weapon-bearers  clear 
on  to  the  north,  and  as  far  as  the  foot  of  the 
Arctic  circle.  Their  language  and  their  meth- 


318  The  Story  of 

ods  mark  the  entire  cattle  business  of  the  plains 
from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the  Selkirks.  Theirs 
was  a  great  school  for  frontiersmen,  and  its 
graduates  gave  full  account  of  themselves 
wherever  they  went.  Among  them  were  bad 
men,  as  bad  as  the  worst  of  any  land,  and  in 
numbers  not  capable  of  compass  even  in  a 
broad  estimate. 

Some  citizens  of  Montgomery  county,  Texas, 
were  not  long  ago  sitting  in  a  store  of  an  even- 
ing, and  they  fell  to  counting  up  the  homicides 
which  had  fallen  under  their  notice  in  that 
county  within  recent  memory.  They  counted 
up  seventy-five  authenticated  cases,  and  could 
not  claim  comprehensiveness  for  their  tally. 
Many  a  county  of  Texas  could  do  as  well  or  bet- 
ter, and  there  are  many  counties.  It  takes  you 
two  days  to  ride  across  Texas  by  railway.  A 
review  of  the  bad  man  field  of  Texas  pauses 
for  obvious  reasons! 

So  many  bad  men  of  Texas  have  attained 
reputation  far  wider  than  their  state  that  it  be- 
came a  proverb  upon  the  frontier  that  any 
man  born  on  Texas  soil  would  shoot,  just  as 
any  horse  born  there  would  "buck."  There  is 
truth  back  of  most  proverbs,  although  to-day 
both  horses  and  men  of  Texas  are  losing  some- 


The  Outlaw  319 

thing  of  their  erstwhile  bronco  character.  That 
out  of  such  conditions,  out  of  this  hardy  and 
indomitable  population,  the  great  state  could 
bring  order  and  quiet  so  soon  and  so  perma- 
nently over  vast  unsettled  regions,  is  proof  alike 
of  the  fundamental  sternness  and  justness  of  the 
American  character  and  the  value  of  the  Ameri- 
can fighting  man. 

Yet,  though  peace  hath  her  victories  not  less 
than  war,  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  in  her  own 
heart  Texas  is  more  proud  of  her  statesmen 
and  commercial  kings  than  of  her  stalwart 
fighting  men,  bred  to  the  use  of  arms.  The 
beautiful  city  of  San  Antonio  is  to-day  busy 
and  prosperous;  yet  to-day  you  tread  there 
ground  which  has  been  stained  red  over  and 
over  again.  The  names  of  Crockett,  Milam, 
Travis,  Bowie,  endure  where  those  of  captains 
of  industry  are  forgotten.  Out  of  history  such 
as  this,  covering  a  half  century  of  border  fight- 
ing, of  frontier  travel  and  merchandising,  of 
cattle  trade  and  railroad  building,  it  is  impossi- 
ble— in  view  of  the  many  competitors  of  equal 
claims — to  select  an  example  of  bad  eminence 
fit  to  bear  the  title  of  the  leading  bad  man  of 
Texas. 

There  was  one  somewhat  noted  Texas  char- 


320  The  Story  of 

acter,  however,  whose  life  comes  down  to  mod- 
ern times,  and  hence  is  susceptible  of  fairly  ac- 
curate review — a  thing  always  desirable,  though 
not  often  practical,  for  no  history  is  more  dis- 
torted, not  to  say  more  garbled,  than  that  deal- 
ing with  the  somewhat  mythical  exploits  of 
noted  gun  fighters.  Ben  Thompson,  of  Austin, 
killer  of  more  than  twenty  men,  and  a  very  per- 
fect exemplar  of  the  creed  of  the  six-shooter, 
will  serve  as  instance  good  enough  for  a  generic 
application.  Thompson  was  not  a  hero.  He 
did  no  deeds  of  war.  He  led  no  forlorn  hope 
into  the  imminent  deadly  breach.  His  name  is 
preserved  in  no  history  of  his  great  common- 
wealth. He  was  in  the  opinion  of  certain  peace 
officers,  all  that  a  citizen  should  not  be.  Yet 
in  his  way  he  reached  distinction;  and  so  strik- 
ing was  his  life  that  even  to-day  he  does  not 
lack  apologists,  even  as  he  never  lacked  friends. 
Ben  Thompson  was  of  English  descent,  and 
was  born  near  Lockhart,  Texas,  according  to 
general  belief,  though  it  is  stated  that  he  was 
born  in  Yorkshire,  England.  Later  his  home 
was  in  Austin,  where  he  spent  the  greater  part 
of  his  life,  though  roaming  from  place  to  place. 
Known  as  a  bold  and  skillful  gun  man,  he  was 
looked  on  as  good  material  for  a  hunter  of  bad 


The   Outlaw  321 

men,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  was  marshal 
of  police  at  Austin.  In  personal  appearance 
Thompson  looked  the  part  of  the  typical  gam- 
bler and  gun  fighter.  His  height  was  about  five 
feet  eight  inches,  and  his  figure  was  muscular 
and  compact.  His  hair  was  dark  and  waving; 
his  eyes  gray.  He  was  very  neat  in  dress,  and 
always  took  particular  pains  with  his  footwear, 
his  small  feet  being  always  clad  in  well-fitting 
boots  of  light  material,  a  common  form  of 
foppery  in  a  land  where  other  details  of  dress 
were  apt  to  be  carelessly  regarded.  He  wore 
a  dark  mustache  which,  in  his  early  years,  he 
was  wont  to  keep  waxed  to  points.  In  speech 
he  was  quiet  and  unobtrusive,  unless  excited  by 
drink.  With  the  six-shooter  he  was  a  peerless 
shot,  an  absolute  genius,  none  in  all  his  wide 
surrounding  claiming  to  be  his  superior;  and 
he  had  a  ferocity  of  disposition  which  grew  with 
years  until  he  had,  as  one  of  his  friends  put  it, 
"a  craving  to  kill  people."  Each  killing 
seemed  to  make  him  desirous  of  another.  He 
thus  came  to  exercise  that  curious  fascination 
which  such  characters  have  always  commanded. 
Fear  he  did  not  know,  or  at  least  no  test  aris- 
ing in  his  somewhat  varied  life  ever  caused  him 
to  show  fear.  He  passed  through  life  as  a  wild 


322  The  Story  of 

animal,  ungoverned  by  the  law,  rejoicing  in 
blood;  yet  withal  he  was  held  as  a  faithful 
friend  and  a  good  companion.  To  this  day 
many  men  repel  the  accusation  that  he  was  bad, 
and  maintain  that  each  of  his  twenty  killings 
was  done  in  self-defense.  The  brutal  phase  of 
his  nature  was  no  doubt  dominant,  even  al- 
though it  was  not  always  in  evidence.  He  was 
usually  spoken  of  as  a  "good  fellow,"  and  those 
who  palliate  or  deny  most  of  his  wild  deeds 
declare  that  local  history  has  never  been  as  fair 
to  him  as  he  deserved. 

Thompson's  first  killing  was  while  he  was  a 
young  man  at  New  Orleans,  and  according  to 
the  story,  arose  out  of  his  notions  of  chivalry. 
He  was  passing  down  the  street  in  a  public  con- 
veyance, in  company  of  several  young  Creoles, 
who  were  going  home  from  a  dance  in  a  some- 
what exhilarated  condition.  One  or  two  of  the 
strangers  made  remarks  to  an  unescorted  girl, 
which  Thompson  construed  to  be  offensive,  and 
he  took  it  upon  himself  to  avenge  the  insult  to 
womanhood.  In  the  affray  that  followed  he 
killed  one  of  the  young  men.  For  this  he  was 
obliged  to  flee  to  old  Mexico,  taking  one  of 
the  boats  down  the  river.  He  returned  pres- 
ently to  Galveston,  where  he  set  up  as  a  gam- 


The  Outlaw  323 

bier,  and  began  to  extend  his  reputation  as  a 
fighting  man.  Most  of  his  encounters  were 
over  cards  or  drink  or  women,  the  history  of 
many  or  most  of  the  border  killings. 

Thompson's  list  grew  steadily,  and  by  the 
time  he  was  forty  years  of  age  he  had  a  reputa- 
tion far  wider  than  his  state.  In  all  the  main 
cities  of  Texas  he  was  a  figure  more  or  less 
familiar,  and  always  dreaded.  His  skill  with 
his  favorite  weapon  was  a  proverb  in  a  state 
full  of  men  skilled  with  weapons.  Moreover, 
his  disposition  now  began  to  grow  more  ugly, 
sullen  and  bloodthirsty.  He  needed  small  pre- 
text to  kill  a  man  if,  for  the  slightest  cause,  he 
took  a  dislike  to  him.  To  illustrate  the  ferocity 
of  the  man,  and  his  readiness  to  provoke  a  quar- 
rel, the  following  story  is  told  of  him: 

A  gambler  by  the  name  of  Jim  Burdette  was 
badly  whipped  by  the  proprietor  of  a  variety 
show,  Mark  Wilson,  who,  after  the  fight,  told 
Burdette  that  he  had  enough  of  men  like  him, 
who  only  came  to  his  theater  to  raise  trouble 
and  interfere  with  his  business,  and  that  if 
either  he  or  any  of  his  gang  ever  again  at- 
tempted to  disturb  his  audiences  that  they  would 
have  him  (Wilson)  to  deal  with.  The  next 
day  Ben  Thompson,  seated  in  a  barber  shop, 


324  The  Story  of 

heard  about  the  row  and  said  to  a  negro  stand- 
ing by:  "Mack,  d — n  your  nigger  soul,  you  go 
down  to  that  place  this  evening  and  when  the 
house  is  full  and  everybody  is  seated,  you  just 

raise  hell  and  we'll  see  what  that is  made 

of."  The  program  was  carried  out.  The 
negro  arose  in  the  midst  of  the  audience  and 
delivered  himself  of  a  few  blood-curdling  yells. 
Instantly  the  proprietor  came  out  of  the  place, 
but  caught  sight  of  Thompson,  who  had  drawn 
a  pair  of  guns  and  stood  ready  to  kill  Wilson. 
The  latter  was  too  quick  for  him,  and  quickly 
disappeared  behind  the  scenery,  after  his  shot- 
gun. There  was  too  much  excitement  that 
night,  and  the  matter  passed  off  without  a  kill- 
ing. A  few  nights  thereafter,  Thompson  pro- 
cured some  lamp-black,  which  he  gave  the  gam- 
bler Burdette,  with  instructions  to  go  to  the 
theater,  watch  his  chance,  and  dash  the  stuff 
in  Wilson's  face.  This  was  done  and  when 
the  ill-fated  proprietor,  who  immediately  went 
for  his  shotgun,  came  out  with  that  weapon, 
Thompson  fell  to  the  ground,  and  the  con- 
tents of  the  gun,  badly  fired  at  the  hands  of 
Wilson,  his  face  full  of  lamp-black,  passed  over 
Thompson's  head.  Thompson  then  arose  and 
filled  Wilson  full  of  holes,  killing  him  instantly. 


The  Outlaw  325 

The  bartender,  seeing  his  employer's  life  in 
danger,  fired  at  Thompson  wildly,  and  as 
Thompson  turned  on  him  he  dodged  behind 
the  bar  to  receive  his  death  wound  through  the 
counter  and  in  his  back.  Thompson  at  the 
court  of  last  resort  managed  to  have  a  lot  of 
testimony  brought  to  bear,  and,  with  a  half 
dozen  gamblers  to  swear  to  anything  he  needed, 
he  was  admitted  to  bail  and  later  freed. 

He  is  said  to  have  killed  these  two  men  for 
no  reason  in  the  world  except  to  show  that  he 
could  "run"  a  place  where  others  had  failed. 
A  variation  of  the  story  is  that  a  saloon  keeper 
fired  at  Thompson  as  he  was  walking  down  the 
street  in  Austin,  and  missing  him,  sprang  back 
behind  the  bar,  Thompson  shooting  him 
through  the  head,  through  the  bar  front.  An- 
other man's  life  now  meant  little  to  him.  He 
desired  to  be  king,  to  be  "chief,"  just  as  the 
leaders  of  the  desperadoes  in  the  mining  regions 
of  California  and  Montana  sought  to  be 
"chief."  It  meant  recognition  of  their  courage, 
their  skill,  their  willingness  to  take  human  life 
easily  and  carelessly  and  quickly,  a  singular  am- 
bition which  has  been  so  evidenced  in  no  other 
part  of  the  world  than  the  American  West. 
It  is  certain  that  the  worst  bad  men  all  over 


326  The  Story  of 

Texas  were  afraid  of  Ben  Thompson.    He  was 
"chief.11 

Ben  Thompson  left  the  staid  paths  of  life 
in  civilized  communities.  He  did  not  rob,  and 
he  did  not  commit  theft  or  burglary  or  any  high- 
way crimes;  yet  toiling  and  spinning  were  not 
for  him.  He  was,  for  the  most  part,  a  gambler, 
and  after  a  while  he  ceased  even  to  follow  that 
calling  as  a  means  of  livelihood.  Forgetting 
the  etiquette  of  his  chosen  profession,  he  in- 
sisted on  winning  no  manner  how  and  no  matter 
what  the  game.  He  would  go  into  a  gambling 
resort  in  some  town,  and  sit  in  at  a  game.  If 
he  won,  very  well.  If  he  lost,  he  would  become 
enraged,  and  usually  ended  by  reaching  out  and 
raking  in  the  money  on  the  table,  no  matter 
what  the  decision  of  the  cards.  He  bought 
drinks  for  the  crowd  with  the  money  he  thus 
took,  and  scattered  it  right  and  left,  so  that  his 
acts  found  a  certain  sanction  among  those  who 
had  not  been  despoiled. 

To  know  what  nerve  it  required  to  perform 
these  acts  of  audacity,  one  must  know  some- 
thing of  the  frontier  life,  which  at  no  corner 
of  the  world  was  wilder  and  touchier  than  in 
the  very  part  of  the  country  where  Thompson 
held  forth.  There  were  hundreds  of  men  quick 


The  Outlaw  327 

with  the  gun  all  about  him,  men  of  nerve, 
but  he  did  not  hesitate  to  take  all  manner  of 
chances  in  that  sort  of  population.  The  mad- 
ness of  the  bad  man  was  upon  him.  He  must 
have  known  what  alone  could  be  his  fate  at 
last,  but  he  went  on,  defying  and  courting  his 
own  destruction,  as  the  finished  desperado  al- 
ways does,  under  the  strange  creed  of  self- 
reliance  which  he  established  as  his  code  of  life. 
Thus,  at  a  banquet  of  stockmen  in  Austin,  and 
while  the  dinner  was  in  progress,  Thompson, 
alone,  stampeded  every  man  of  them,  and  at 
that  time  nearly  all  stockmen  were  game.  The 
fear  of  Thompson's  pistol  was  such  that  no  one 
would  stand  for  a  fight  with  him.  Once 
Thompson  went  to  the  worst  place  in  Texas, 
the  town  of  Luling,  where  Rowdy  Joe  was  run- 
ning the  toughest  dance  house  in  America.  He 
ran  all  the  bad  men  out  of  the  place,  confiscated 
what  cash  he  needed  from  the  gaming  tables 
and  raised  trouble  generally.  He  showed  that 
he  was  "chief." 

In  the  early  eighties,  in  the  quiet,  sleepy, 
bloody  old  town  of  San  Antonio,  there  was  a 
dance  hall,  gambling  resort  and  vaudeville  the- 
ater, in  which  the  main  proprietor  was  one  Jack 
Harris,  commonly  known  as  Pegleg  Harris. 


328  The  Story  of 

Thompson  frequently  patronized  this  place  on 
his  visits  to  San  Antonio,  and  received  treatment 
which  left  him  with  a  grudge  against  Harris, 
whom  he  resolved  to  kill.  He  followed  his  man 
into  the  bar-room  one  day  and  killed  Harris  as 
he  stood  in  the  semi-darkness.  It  was  only 
another  case  of  "self-defense"  for  Thompson, 
who  was  well  used  to  being  cleared  of  criminal 
charges  or  left  unaccused  altogether;  and  no 
doubt  Harris  would  have  killed  him  if  he  could. 
After  killing  Harris,  Thompson  declared 
that  he  proposed  to  kill  Harris'  partners,  Fos- 
ter and  Simms.  He  had  an  especial  grudge 
against  Billy  Simms,  then  a  young  man  not  yet 
nineteen  years  of  age,  because,  so  it  is  stated,  he 
fancied  that  Simms  supplanted  him  in  the  affec- 
tions of  a  woman  in  Austin;  and  he  carried 
also  his  grudge  against  the  gambling  house, 
where  Simms  now  was  the  manager.  Every 
time  Thompson  got  drunk,  he  declared  his  in- 
tention of  killing  Billy  Simms,  and  as  the  latter 
was  young  and  inexperienced,  he  trembled  in 
his  boots  at  this  talk  which  seemed  surely  to 
spell  his  doom.  Simms,  to  escape  Thompson's 
wrath,  removed  to  Chicago,  and  remained  there 
for  a  time,  but  before  long  was  summoned 
home  to  Austin,  where  his  mother  was  very  ill. 


The  Outlaw  329 

Thompson  knew  of  his  presence  in  Austin,  but 
with  magnanimity  declined  to  kill  Simms  while 
he  was  visiting  his  sick  mother.  "Wait  till  he 
goes  over  to  Santone,"  he  said,  "then  I'll  step 
over  and  kill  the  little  ."  Simms,  pres- 
ently called  to  San  Antonio  to  settle  some  debt 
of  Jack  Harris*  estate,  of  which  as  friend  and 
partner  of  the  widow  he  had  been  appointed 
administrator,  went  to  the  latter  city  with  a 
heavy  heart,  supposing  that  he  would  never 
leave  it  alive.  He  was  told  there  that  Thomp- 
son had  been  threatening  him  many  times;  and 
Simms  received  many  telegrams  to  that  effect. 
Some  say  that  Thompson  himself  telegraphed 
Simms  that  he  was  coming  down  that  day  to 
kill  him.  Certainly  a  friend  of  Simms  on  the 
same  day  wired  him  warning:  "Party  who 
wants  to  destroy  you  on  train  this  day  bound  for 
San  Antonio." 

Friends  of  Thompson  deny  that  he  made 
such  threats,  and  insist  that  he  went  to  San 
Antonio  on  a  wholly  peaceful  errand.  In  any 
case,  this  guarded  but  perfectly  plain  message 
set  Simms  half  distracted.  He  went  to  the 
city  marshal  and  showed  his  telegram,  asking 
the  marshal  for  protection,  but  the  latter  told 
him  nothing  could  be  done  until  Thompson  had 


33°  The  Story  of 

committed  some  "overt  act."  The  sheriff  and 
all  the  other  officers  said  the  same  thing,  not 
caring  to  meet  Thompson  if  they  could  avoid 
it.  Simms  later  in  telling  his  story  would  sob 
at  the  memory  of  his  feeling  of  helplessness 
at  that  time.  The  law  gave  him  no  protection. 
He  was  obliged  to  take  matters  in  his  own 
hands.  He  went  to  a  judge  of  the  court,  and 
asked  him  what  he  should  do.  The  judge  pon- 
dered for  a  time,  and  said:  "Under  the  circum- 
stances, I  should  advise  a  shotgun." 

Simms  went  to  one  of  the  faro  dealers  of  the 
house,  a  man  who  was  known  as  bad,  and  who 
never  sat  down  to  deal  faro  without  a  brace  of 
big  revolvers  on  the  table;  but  this  dealer  ad- 
vised him  to  go  and  "make  friends  with 
Thompson."  He  went  to  Foster,  Harris'  old 
partner,  and  laid  the  matter  before  him.  Fos- 
ter said,  slowly,  "Well,  Billy,  when  he  comes 
we'll  do  the  best  we  can."  Simms  thought  that 
he  too  was  weakening. 

There  was  a  big  policeman,  a  Mexican  by 
name  of  Coy,  who  was  considered  a  brave  man 
and  a  fighter,  and  Simms  now  went  to  him  and 
asked  for  aid,  saying  that  he  expected  trouble 
that  night,  and  wanted  Coy  to  do  his  duty.  Coy 
did  not  become  enthusiastic,  though  as  a  matter 


The  Outlaw  331 

of  fact  neither  he  nor  Foster  made  any  attempt 
to  leave  the  place.  Simms  turned  away,  feeling 
that  his  end  was  near.  In  desperation  he  got  a 
shotgun,  and  for  a  time  stationed  himself  near 
the  top  of  the  stair  up  which  Thompson  would 
probably  come  when  entering  the  place.  The 
theater  was  up  one  flight  of  stairs,  and  at  the 
right  was  the  customary  bar,  from  which 
"ladies"  in  short  skirts  served  drinks  to  the 
crowd  during  the  variety  performance,  which 
was  one  of  the  attractions  of  the  place. 

It  was  nervous  work,  waiting  for  the  killer 
to  come,  and  Simms  could  not  stand  it.  He 
walked  down  the  stairway,  and  took  a  turn 
around  the  block  before  he  again  ascended  the 
stairs  to  the  hall.  Meantime,  Ben  Thompson, 
accompanied  by  another  character,  King  Fisher, 
a  man  with  several  notches  on  his  gun,  had 
ascended  the  stairs,  and  had  taken  a  seat  on  the 
right  hand  side  and  beyond  the  bar,  in  the  row 
nearest  the  door.  When  Simms  stepped  to 
the  foot  of  the  stairs  on  his  return,  he  met  the 
barkeeper,  who  was  livid  with  terror.  He 
pointed  trembling  up  the  stair  and  whispered, 
"He's  there !"  Ben  Thompson  and  King  Fisher 
had  as  yet  made  no  sort  of  demonstration.  It 
is  said  that  King  Fisher  had  decoyed  Thomp- 


332  The  Story  of 

son  into  the  theater,  knowing  that  a  trap  was 
laid  to  kill  him.  It  is  also  declared  that  Thomp- 
son went  in  merely  for  amusement.  A  friend 
of  the  author,  a  New  Mexican  sheriff  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  San  Antonio,  saw  and  talked 
with  both  men  that  afternoon.  They  were  both 
quiet  and  sober  then. 

Simms'  heart  was  in  his  mouth,  but  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  die  game,  if  he  had  to  die. 
Slowly  he  walked  up  the  stairway.  Such  was 
Thompson's  vigilance,  that  he  quickly  arose  and 
advanced  toward  Simms,  who  stood  at  the  top 
of  the  stairs  petrified  and  unable  to  move  a 
muscle.  Before  Simms  could  think,  his  partner, 
Foster,  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  as  he  stood 
up,  Thompson  saw  him  and  walked  toward 
him  and  said:  "Hello,  Foster,  how  are  you?" 
Slowly  and  deliberately  Foster  spoke:  "Ben, 
this  world  is  not  big  enough  for  us  both.  You 
killed  poor  Jack  Harris  like  a  dog,  and  you 
didn't  as  much  as  give  him  a  chance  for  his 
life.  You  and  I  can  never  be  friends  any 
more."  Quick  as  a  flash  and  with  a  face  like 
a  demon,  Thompson  drew  his  pistol  and 
jammed  it  into  Foster's  mouth,  cruelly  tearing 
his  lips  and  sending  him  reeling  backward. 
While  this  was  going  on,  Simms  had  retreated 


The  Outlaw  333 

to  the  next  step,  and  there  drew  his  pistol,  not 
having  his  shotgun  in  hand  then.  He  stepped 
forward  as  he  saw  Foster  reel  from  the  blow 
Thompson  gave  him,  and  with  sudden  courage 
opened  fire.  His  first  shot  must  have  taken 
effect,  and  perhaps  it  decided  the  conflict. 
Thompson's  gun  did  not  get  into  action.  Simms 
kept  on  firing.  Thompson  reeled  back  against 
King  Fisher,  and  the  two  were  unable  to  fire. 
Meantime  the  big  Mexican,  Coy,  showed  up 
from  somewhere,  just  as  Foster  had.  Both 
Foster  and  Coy  rushed  in  front  of  the  line  of 
fire  of  Simms'  pistol;  and  then  without  doubt, 
Simms  killed  his  own  friend  and  preserver. 
Foster  got  his  death  wound  in  such  position 
that  Simms  admitted  he  must  have  shot  him. 
None  the  less  Foster  ran  into  Thompson  as  the 
latter  reeled  backwards  upon  Fisher,  and,  with 
the  fury  of  a  tiger,  shoved  his  own  pistol  barrel 
into  Thompson's  mouth  in  turn,  and  fired  twice, 
completing  the  work  Simms  had  begun.  The 
giant  Coy  hurled  his  bulk  into  the  struggling 
mass  now  crowded  into  the  corner  of  the  room, 
and  some  say  he  held  Ben  Thompson's  arms, 
though  in  the  melee  it  was  hard  to  tell  what 
happened.  He  called  out  to  Simms,  "Don't 
mind  me,"  meaning  that  Simms  should  keep  on 


334  The  Story  of 

firing.  "Kill  the  of  -  — !"  he  cried. 

Coy  no  doubt  was  a  factor  in  saving  Simms' 
life,  for  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  worst 
men  in  the  Southwest  would  have  got  a  man 
before  he  fell,  had  he  been  able  to  get  his  hands 
free  in  the  struggling.  Coy  was  shot  in  the  leg, 
possibly  by  Simms,  but  did  not  drop.  Simms 
took  care  of  Coy  to  the  end  of  his  life,  Coy 
dying  but  recently. 

One  of  the  men  engaged  in  this  desperate 
fight  says  that  Coy  did  not  hold  Thompson, 
and  that  at  first  no  one  was  shot  to  the  floor. 
Thompson  was  staggered  by  Simms'  first  shot, 
which  prevented  a  quick  return  of  fire.  It  was 
Foster  who  killed  Thompson  and  very  likely 
King  Fisher,  the  latter  being  hemmed  in  in  the 
corner  with  Thompson  in  front  of  him.  Coy 
rushed  into  the  two  and  handled  them  so 
roughly  that  they  never  got  their  guns  into 
action  so  far  as  known. 

Leaving  the  fallen  men  at  the  rear  of  the 
theater,  Simms  now  went  down  stairs,  carrying 
Foster's  pistol,  with  two  chambers  empty  (the 
shots  that  killed  Thompson)  and  his  own  gun. 
He  saw  Thompson's  brother  Bill  coming  at 
him.  He  raised  the  gun  to  kill  him,  when  Phil 
Shardein,  then  city  marshal,  jumped  on  Thomp- 


The   Outlaw  335 

son  and  shielded  him  with  his  body,  calling 
out,  "Don't  shoot,  Billy,  I've  got  him."  This 
saved  Bill  Thompson's  life.  Then  several  shots 
were  heard  upstairs,  and  upon  investigation, 
it  was  found  that  Coy  had  emptied  his  pistol 
into  the  dead  body  of  Thompson.  He  also 

shot  Fisher,  to  "make  sure  the  were 

dead." 

Thus  they  died  at  last,  two  of  the  most  noto- 
rious men  of  Texas,  both  with  their  boots  on. 
There  were  no  tears.  Many  told  what  they 
would  or  could  have  done  had  Ben  Thompson 
threatened  them.  This  closing  act  in  the  career 
of  Ben  Thompson  came  in  the  late  spring  of 
1882.  He  was  then  about  forty-three  years 
of  age. 

King  Fisher,  who  met  death  at  the  same  time 
with  Thompson,  was  a  good  disciple  of  desper- 
adoism.  He  was  a  dark-haired,  slender  young 
man  from  Goliad  county — which  county  seems 
to  have  produced  far  more  than  it's  share  of 
bad  men.  He  had  killed  six  men  and  stolen  a 
great  many  horses  in  his  time.  Had  he  lived 
longer,  he  would  have  killed  more.  He  was  not 
of  the  caliber  sufficient  to  undertake  the  running 
of  a  large  city,  but  there  was  much  relief  felt 
over  his  death.  He  had  many  friends,  of 


336  The  Story  of 

course,  and  some  of  these  deny  that  he  had 
any  intention  of  making  trouble  when  he  went 
into  the  theater  with  Ben  Thompson,  just  as 
friends  of  the  latter  accuse  King  Fisher  of 
treachery.  There  are  never  lacking  men  who 
regard  dead  desperadoes  as  martyrs ;  and  indeed 
it  is  usually  the  case  that  there  are  mixed  cir- 
cumstances and  frequently  extenuating  ones,  to 
be  found  in  the  history  of  any  killer's  life. 

Another  Goliad  county  man  well  known 
around  San  Antonio  was  Alfred  Y.  Alice,  who 
was  a  rancher  a  short  distance  back  from  the 
railway.  Alice  was  decent  when  sober,  but 
when  drunk  was  very  dangerous,  and  was  rec- 
ognized as  bad  and  well  worth  watching. 
Liquor  seemed  to  transform  him  and  to  make 
him  a  bloodthirsty  fiend.  He  had  killed  several 
men,  one  or  two  under  no  provocation  whatever 
and  when  they  were  defenseless,  including  a 
porter  on  a  railway  train.  It  was  his  habit  to 
come  to  town  and  get  drunk,  then  to  invite 
every  one  to  drink  with  him  and  take  offense 
at  any  refusal.  He  liked  to  be  "chief  of  the 
drinking  place  which  he  honored  with  his  pres- 
ence. He  once  ordered  a  peaceful  citizen  of 
San  Antonio,  a  friend  of  the  writer,  up  to  drink 
with  him,  and  when  the  latter  declined  came 


The  Outlaw  337 

near  shooting  him.  The  man  took  his  drink, 
then  slipped  away  and  got  his  shotgun.  Per- 
haps his  second  thought  was  wiser.  "What's 
the  use?"  he  argued  with  himself.  "Some- 
body'll  kill  Alice  before  long  anyhow." 

This  came  quite  true,  for  within  the  week 
Alice  had  run  his  course.  He  dropped  down 
to  Laredo  and  began  to  "hurrah"  that  town 
also.  The  town  marshal,  Joe  Bartelow,  was  a 
Mexican,  but  something  of  a  killer  himself,  and 
he  resolved  to  end  the  Alice  disturbances,  once 
for  all.  It  is  said  that  Alice  was  not  armed 
when  at  length  they  met  in  a  saloon,  and  it  is 
said  that  Bartelow  offered  his  hand  in  greet- 
ing. At  once  Bartelow  threw  his  arm  around 
Alice's  neck,  and  with  his  free  hand  cut  him 
to  death  with  a  knife.  Whether  justifiable  or 
not,  that  was  the  fashion  of  the  homicide. 

Any  man  who  has  killed  more  than  twenty 
men  is  in  most  countries  considered  fit  to  qualify 
as  bad.  This  test  would  include  the  little  hu- 
man tiger,  Tumlinson,  of  South  Texas,  who  was 
part  of  the  time  an  officer  of  the  law  and  part 
of  the  time  an  independent  killer  in  Texas.  He 
had  many  more  than  twenty  men  to  his  credit, 
it  was  said,  and  his  Mexican  wife,  smilingly, 
always  said  that  "Tumlinson  never  counted 


338  The  Story  of 

Mexicans."  He  was  a  genius  with  the  revol- 
ver, and  as  good  a  rifle  shot  as  would  often  be 
found.  It  made  no  difference  to  him  whether 
or  not  a  man  was  running,  for  part  of  his  pistol 
practice  was  in  shooting  at  a  bottle  swinging  in 
the  wind  from  the  bough  of  a  tree.  Legend 
goes  that  Tumlinson  killed  his  wife  and  then 
shot  himself  dead,  taking  many  secrets  with 
him.  He  was  bad. 

Sam  Bass  was  a  noted  outlaw  and  killer  in 
West  Texas,  accustomed  to  ride  into  town  and 
to  take  charge  of  things  when  he  pleased.  He 
had  many  thefts  and  robberies  to  his  credit,  and 
not  a  few  murders.  His  finish  was  one  not  in- 
frequent in  that  country.  The  citizens  got 
wind  of  his  coming  one  day,  just  before  he 
rode  into  Round  Rock  for  a  little  raid.  The 
city  marshal  and  several  others  opened  fire  on 
Bass  and  his  party,  and  killed  them  to  a  man. 

It  was  of  such  stuff  as  this  that  most  of  the 
bad  men  and  indeed  many  of  the  peace  officers 
were  composed,  along  a  wide  frontier  in  the 
early  troublous  days  following  the  civil  war, 
when  all  the  border  was  a  seething  mass  of 
armed  men  for  whom  the  law  had  as  yet  gained 
no  meaning.  To  tell  the  story  of  more  indi- 
viduals would  be  to  depart  from  the  purpose 


The   Outlaw  339 

of  this  work.  Were  these  men  wrong,  and 
were  they  wholly  and  unreservedly  bad?  Ig- 
norance and  bigotry  will  be  the  first  to  give 
the  answer,  the  first  to  apply  to  them  the  stand- 
ards of  these  later  days. 


340  The  Story  of 


Chapter  XX 

Modern  Bad  Men — Murder  and  Robbery  as 
a  Profession — The  School  of  Guerrilla  War- 
fare— Butcher  Quantrell;  the  James  Broth- 
ers;  the  Younger  Brothers.  :  :  :  :  : 

OUTLAWRY  of  the  early  border,  in 
days  before  any  pretense  at  establish- 
ment of  a  system  of  law  and  govern- 
ment, and  before  the  holding  of  property  had 
assumed  any  very  stable  form,  may  have  re- 
tained a  certain  glamour  of  romance.  The 
loose  gold  of  the  mountains,  the  loose  cattle 
of  the  plains,  before  society  had  fallen  into  any 
strict  way  of  living,  and  while  plenty  seemed  to 
exist  for  any  and  all,  made  a  temptation  easily 
accepted  and  easily  excused.  The  ruffians  of 
those  early  days  had  a  largeness  in  their  meth- 
ods which  gives  some  of  them  at  least  a  color 
of  interest.  If  any  excuse  may  be  offered  for 
lawlessness,  any  palliation  for  acts  committed 


The   Outlaw  341 

without  countenance  of  the  law,  that  excuse  and 
palliation  may  be  pleaded  for  these  men  if  for 
any.  But  for  the  man  who  is  bad  and  mean  as 
well,  who  kills  for  gain,  and  who  adds  cruelty 
and  cunning  to  his  acts  instead  of  boldness  and 
courage,  little  can  be  said.  Such  characters 
afford  us  horror,  but  it  is  horror  unmingled  with 
any  manner  of  admiration. 

Yet,  if  we  reconcile  ourselves  to  tarry  a  mo- 
ment with  the  cheap  and  gruesome,  the  brutal 
and  ignorant  side  of  mere  crime,  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  take  into  consideration  some  of  the 
bloodiest  characters  ever  known  in  our  history; 
who  operated  well  within  the  day  of  established 
law;  who  made  a  trade  of  robbery,  and  whose 
capital  consisted  of  disregard  for  the  life  and 
property  of  others.  That  men  like  this  should 
live  for  years  at  the  very  door  of  large  cities, 
in  an  old  settled  country,  and  known  familiarly 
in  their  actual  character  to  thousands  of  good 
citizens,  is  a  strange  commentary  on  the  Ameri- 
can character;  yet  such  are  the  facts. 

It  has  been  shown  that  a  widely  extended  war 
always  has  the  effect  of  cheapening  human  life 
in  and  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  fighting  armies. 
The  early  wars  of  England,  in  the  days  of  the 
longbow  and  buckler,  brought  on  her  palmiest 


342  The  Story  of 

days  of  cutpurses  and  cutthroats.  The  days 
following  our  own  civil  war  were  fearful  ones 
for  the  entire  country  from  Montana  to  Texas; 
and  nowhere  more  so  than  along  the  dividing 
line  between  North  and  South,  where  feeling 
far  bitterer  than  soldierly  antagonism  marked 
a  large  population  on  both  sides  of  that  contest. 
We  may  further  restrict  the  field  by  saying  that 
nowhere  on  any  border  was  animosity  so  fierce 
as  in  western  Missouri  and  eastern  Kansas, 
where  jayhawker  and  border  ruffian  waged  a 
guerrilla  war  for  years  before  the  nation  was 
arrayed  against  itself  in  ordered  ranks.  If 
mere  blood  be  matter  of  our  record  here,  assur- 
edly, is  a  field  of  interest.  The  deeds  of  Lane 
and  Brown,  of  Quantrell  and  Hamilton,  are 
not  surpassed  in  terror  in  the  history  of  any 
land.  Osceola,  Marais  du  Cygne,  Lawrence — 
these  names  warrant  a  shudder  even  to-day. 

This  locality — say  that  part  of  Kansas  and 
Missouri  near  the  towns  of  Independence  and 
Westport,  and  more  especially  the  counties  of 
Jackson  and  Clay  in  the  latter  state — was  al- 
ways turbulent,  and  had  reason  to  be.  Here 
was  the  halting  place  of  the  westbound  civili- 
zation, at  the  edge  of  the  plains,  at  the  line 
long  dividing  the  whites  from  the  Indians. 


The   Outlaw  343 

Here  settled,  like  the  gravel  along  the  cleats  of 
a  sluice,  the  daring  men  who  had  pushed  west 
from  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  lower  Ohio,  eastern 
Missouri — the  Boones,  Carsons,  Crocketts,  and 
Kentons  of  their  day.  Here  came  the  Mor- 
mons to  found  their  towns,  and  later  tq  meet 
the  armed  resistance  which  drove  them  across 
the  plains.  Here,  at  these  very  towns,  was  the 
outfitting  place  and  departing  point  of  the  cara- 
vans of  the  early  Santa  Fe  trade ;  here  the  Ore- 
gon Trail  left  for  the  far  Northwest;  and  here 
the  Forty-niners  paused  a  moment  in  their  mad 
rush  to  the  golden  coast  of  the  Pacific.  Here, 
too,  adding  the  bitterness  of  fanaticism  to  the 
courage  of  the  frontier,  came  the  bold  men  of 
the  North  who  insisted  that  Kansas  should  be 
free  for  the  expansion  of  the  northern  popula- 
tion and  institutions. 

This  corner  of  Missouri-Kansas  was  a  focus 
of  recklessness  and  daring  for  more  than  a 
whole  generation.  The  children  born  there  had 
an  inheritance  of  indifference  to  death  such  as 
has  been  surpassed  nowhere  in  our  frontier  un- 
less that  were  in  the  bloody  Southwest.  The 
men  of  this  country,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  civil 
war,  made  as  high  an  average  in  desperate 
fighting  as  any  that  ever  lived.  Too  restless  to 


344 The  Story  of 

fight  under  the  ensign  of  any  but  their  own  ilk, 
they  set  up  a  banner  of  their  own.  The  black 
flags  of  Quantrell  and  of  Lane,  of  border  ruf- 
fian and  jayhawker,  were  guidons  under  which 
quarter  was  unknown,  and  mercy  a  forgotten 
thing.  Warfare  became  murder,  and  murder 
became  assassination.  Ambushing,  surprise, 
pillage  and  arson  went  with  murder;  and 
women  and  children  were  killed  as  well  as  fight- 
ing men.  Is  it  wonder  that  in  such  a  school 
there  grew  up  those  figures  which  a  certain 
class  of  writers  have  been  wont  to  call  bandit 
kings;  the  bank  robbers  and  train  robbers  of 
modern  days,  the  James  and  Younger  type  of 
bad  men  ? 

The  most  notorious  of  these  border  fighters 
was  the  bloody  leader,  Charles  William  Quan- 
trell, leader  at  the  sacking  of  Lawrence,  and  as 
dangerous  a  partisan  leader  as  ever  threw  leg 
into  saddle.  He  was  born  in  Hagerstown, 
Maryland,  July  20,  1836,  and  as  a  boy  lived 
for  a  time  in  the  Ohio  city  of  Cleveland.  At 
twenty  years  of  age,  he  joined  his  brother  for  a 
trip  to  California,  via  the  great  plains.  This 
was  in  1856,  and  Kansas  was  full  of  Free  Soil- 
ers,  whose  political  principles  were  not  always 
untempered  by  a  large-minded  willingness  to 


The  Outlaw  345 

rob.  A  party  of  these  men  surprised  the  Quan- 
trell  party  on  the  Cottonwood  river,  and  killed 
the  older  brother.  Charles  William  Quantrell 
swore  an  undying  revenge;  and  he  kept  his 
oath. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  mention  in  detail  the 
deeds  of  this  border  leader.  They  might  have 
had  commendation  for  their  daring  had  it  not 
been  for  their  brutality  and  treachery.  Quan- 
trell had  a  band  of  sworn  men,  held  under  sol- 
emn oath  to  stand  by  each  other  and  to  keep 
their  secrets.  These  men  were  well  armed  and 
well  mounted,  were  all  fearless  and  all  good 
shots,  the  revolver  being  their  especial  arm,  as 
it  was  of  Mosby's  men  in  the  civil  war.  The 
tactics  of  this  force  comprised  surprise,  ambush, 
and  a  determined  rush,  in  turn;  and  time  and 
again  they  defeated  Federal  forces  many  times 
their  number,  being  thoroughly  well  acquainted 
with  the  country,  and  scrupling  at  nothing  in 
the  way  of  treachery,  just  as  they  considered 
little  the  odds  against  which  they  fought.  Their 
victims  were  sometimes  paroled,  but  not  often, 
and  a  massacre  usually  followed  a  defeat — al- 
most invariably  so  if  the  number  of  prisoners 
was  small. 

Cold-blooded  and  unhesitating  murder  was 


346  The  Story  of 

part  of  their  everyday  life.  Thus  Jesse  James, 
on  the  march  to  the  Lawrence  massacre,  had  in 
charge  three  men,  one  of  them  an  old  man, 
whom  they  took  along  as  guides  from  the  little 
town  of  Aubrey,  Kansas.  They  used  these  men 
until  they  found  themselves  within  a  few  miles 
of  Lawrence,  and  then,  as  is  alleged,  members 
of  the  band  took  them  aside  and  killed  them, 
the  old  man  begging  for  his  life  and  pleading 
that  he  never  had  done  them  any  wrong.  His 
murderers  were  no  more  than  boys.  This  act 
may  have  been  that  of  bad  men,  but  not  of  the 
sort  of  bad  men  that  leaves  us  any  sort  of  re- 
spect, such  as  that  which  may  be  given  Wild 
Bill,  even  Billy  the  Kid,  or  any  of  a  dozen 
other  big-minded  desperadoes. 

This  assassination  was  but  one  of  scores  or 
hundreds.  A  neighbor  suspected  of  Federal 
sympathies  was  visited  in  the  night  and  shot  or 
hanged,  his  property  destroyed,  his  family 
killed.  The  climax  of  the  Lawrence  massacre 
was  simply  the  working  out  of  principles  of 
blood  and  revenge.  In  that  fight,  or,  more 
properly,  that  massacre,  women  and  children 
went  down  as  well  as  men.  The  James  boys 
were  Quantrell  riders,  Jesse  a  new  recruit,  and 
that  day  they  maintained  that  they  had  killed 


The  Outlaw  347 

sixty-five  persons  between  them,  and  wounded 
twenty  more!  What  was  the  total  record  of 
these  two  men  alone  in  all  this  period  of  guer- 
rilla fighting?  It  cannot  be  told.  Probably 
they  themselves  could  not  remember.  The  four 
Younger  boys  had  records  almost  or  quite  as 
bad. 

There,  indeed,  was  a  border  soaked  in  blood, 
a  country  torn  with  intestinal  warfare.  Quan- 
trell  was  beaten  now  and  then,  meeting  fighting 
men  in  blue  or  in  jeans,  as  well  as  leading  fight- 
ing men;  and  at  times  he  was  forced  to  dis- 
band his  men,  later  to  recruit  again,  and  to 
go  on  with  his  marauding  up  and  down  the 
border.  His  career  attracted  the  attention  of 
leaders  on  both  sides  of  the  opposing  armies, 
and  at  one  time  it  was  nearly  planned  that  Con- 
federates should  join  the  Unionists  and  make 
common  cause  against  these  guerrillas,  who  had 
made  the  name  of  Missouri  one  of  reproach 
and  contempt.  The  matter  finally  adjusted  it- 
self by  the  death  of  Quantrell  in  a  fight  at 
Smiley,  Kentucky,  in  January,  1865. 

With  a  birth  and  training  such  as  this,  what 
could  be  expected  for  the  surviving  Quantrell 
men?  They  scattered  over  all  the  frontier, 
from  Texas  to  Minnesota,  and  most  of  them 


348  The  Story  of 

lived  in  terror  of  their  lives  thereafter,  with  the 
name  of  Quantrell  as  a  term  of  loathing  at- 
tached to  them  where  their  earlier  record  was 
known.  Many  and  many  a  border  killing  years 
later  and  far  removed  in  locality  arose  from  the 
implacable  hatred  descended  from  those  days. 

As  for  the  James  boys,  the  Younger  boys, 
what  could  they  do?  The  days  of  war  were 
gone.  There  were  no  longer  any  armed  ban- 
ners arrayed  one  against  the  other.  The  sol- 
diers who  had  fought  bravely  and  openly  on 
both  sides  had  laid  down  their  arms  and  fra- 
ternized. The  Union  grew,  strong  and  indis- 
soluble. Men  settled  down  to  farming,  to  arti- 
sanship,  to  merchandising,  and  their  wounds 
were  healed.  Amnesty  was  extended  to  those 
who  wished  it  and  deserved  it.  These  men 
could  have  found  a  living  easy  to  them,  for 
the  farming  lands  still  lay  rich  and  ready  for 
them.  But  they  did  not  want  this  life  of  toil. 
They  preferred  the  ways  of  robbery  and  blood 
in  which  they  had  begun.  They  cherished  ani- 
mosity now,  not  against  the  Federals,  but 
against  mankind.  The  social  world  was  their 
field  of  harvest;  and  they  reaped  it,  weapon  in 
hand. 

The  James  family  originally  came  from  Ken- 


The  Outlaw  349 

tucky,  where  Frank  was  born,  in  Scott  county, 
in  1846.  The  father,  Robert  James,  was  a 
Baptist  minister  of  the  Gospel.  He  removed 
to  Clay  county,  Missouri,  in  1849,  an^  Jesse 
was  born  there  in  1850.  Reverend  Robert 
James  left  for  California  in  1851  and  never 
returned.  The  mother,  a  woman  of  great 
strength  of  character,  later  married  a  Doctor 
Samuels.  She  was  much  embittered  by  the  per- 
secution of  her  family,  as  she  considered  it. 
She  herself  lost  an  arm  in  an  attack  by  detectives 
upon  her  home,  in  which  a  young  son  was 
killed.  The  family  had  many  friends  and  con- 
federates throughout  the  country;  else  the 
James  boys  must  have  found  an  end  long  before 
they  were  brought  to  justice. 

From  precisely  the  same  surroundings  came 
the  Younger  boys,  Thomas  Coleman,  or  "Cole," 
Younger,  and  his  brothers,  John,  Bruce,  James, 
and  Robert.  Their  father  was  Henry  W. 
Younger,  who  settled  in  Jackson  county,  Mis- 
souri, in  1825,  and  was  known  as  a  man  of 
ability  and  worth.  For  eight  years  he  was 
county  judge,  and  was  twice  elected  to  the  state 
legislature.  He  had  fourteen  children,  of 
whom  five  certainly  were  bad.  At  one  time  he 
owned  large  bodies  of  land,  and  he  was  a  pros- 


350  The  Story  of 

perous  merchant  in  Harrisonville  for  some 
time.  Cole  Younger  was  born  January  15, 
1844,  John  in  1846,  Bruce  in  1848,  James  in 
1850,  and  Bob  in  1853.  As  these  boys  grew 
old  enough,  they  joined  the  Quantrell  bands, 
and  their  careers  were  precisely  the  same  as 
those  of  the  James  boys.  The  cause  of  their 
choice  of  sides  was  the  same.  Jennison,  the 
Kansas  jayhawker  leader,  in  one  of  his  raids 
into  Missouri,  burned  the  houses  of  Younger 
and  confiscated  the  horses  in  his  livery  stables. 
After  that  the  boys  of  the  family  swore  re- 
venge. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  the  Younger  and 
James  boys  worked  together  very  often,  and 
were  leaders  of  a  band  which  had  a  cave  in 
Clay  county  and  numberless  farm  houses  where 
they  could  expect  shelter  in  need.  With  them, 
part  of  the  time,  were  George  and  Ollie  Shep- 
herd; other  members  of  their  band  were  Bud 
Singleton,  Bob  Moore,  Clel  Miller  and  his 
brother,  Arthur  McCoy;  others  who  came  and 
went  from  time  to  time  were  regularly  con- 
nected with  the  bigger  operations.  It  would  be 
wearisome  to  recount  the  long  list  of  crimes 
these  men  committed  for  ten  or  fifteen  years 
after  the  war.  They  certainly  brought  noto- 


The  Outlaw  351 

riety  to  their  country.  They  had  the  entire 
press  of  America  reproaching  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri ;  they  had  the  governors  of  that  state  and 
two  or  three  others  at  their  wits'  end ;  they  had 
the  best  forces  of  the  large  city  detective 
agencies  completely  baffled.  They  killed  two 
detectives — one  of  whom,  however,  killed  John 
Younger  before  he  died — and  executed  another 
in  cold  blood  under  circumstances  of  repellant 
brutality.  They  raided  over  Missouri,  Kansas, 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  even  as  far  east  as  West 
Virginia,  as  far  north  as  Minnesota,  as  far 
south  as  Texas  and  even  old  Mexico.  They 
looted  dozens  of  banks,  and  held  up  as  many 
railway  passenger  trains  and  as  many  stage 
coaches  and  travelers  as  they  liked.  The  James 
boys  alone  are  known  to  have  taken  in  their 
robberies  $275,000,  and,  including  the  unlaw- 
ful gains  of  their  colleagues,  the  Youngers,  no 
doubt  they  could  have  accounted  for  over  half 
a  million  dollars.  They  laughed  at  the  law, 
defied  the  state  and  county  governments,  and 
rode  as  they  liked,  here,  there,  and  everywhere, 
until  the  name  of  law  in  the  West  was  a  mock- 
ery. If  magnitude  in  crime  be  claim  to  dis- 
tinction, they  might  ask  the  title,  for  surely  their 
exploits  were  unrivaled,  and  perhaps  cannot 


352  The  Story  of 

again  be  equaled.  And  they  did  all  of  these 
unbelievable  things  in  the  heart  of  the  Missis- 
sippi valley,  in  a  country  thickly  settled,  in  the 
face  of  a  long  reputation  for  criminal  deeds, 
and  in  a  country  fully  warned  against  them! 
Surely,  it  seems  sometimes  that  American  law  is 
weak. 

It  was  much  the  same  story  in  all  the  long 
list  of  robberies  of  small  country  banks.  A 
member  of  the  gang  would  locate  the  bank  and 
get  an  idea  of  the  interior  arrangements.  Two 
or  three  of  the  gang  would  step  in  and  ask  to 
have  a  bill  changed;  then  they  would  cover  the 
cashier  with  revolvers  and  force  him  to  open 
the  safe.  If  he  resisted,  he  was  killed;  some- 
times killed  no  matter  what  he  did,  as  was 
cashier  Sheets  in  the  Gallatin  bank  robbery. 
The  guard  outside  kept  the  citizens  terrified  un- 
til the  booty  was  secured;  then  flight  on  good 
horses  followed.  After  that  ensued  the  fran- 
tic and  unorganized  pursuit  by  citizens  and  offi- 
cers, possibly  another  killing  or  two  en  route, 
and  a  return  to  their  lurking  place  in  Clay 
county,  Missouri,  where  they  never  had  any 
difficulty  in  proving  all  the  alibis  they  needed. 
None  of  these  men  ever  confessed  to  a  full 
list  of  these  robberies,  and,  even  years  later, 


The  Outlaw  353 

they  all  denied  complicity ;  but  the  facts  are  too 
well  known  to  warrant  any  attention  to  their 
denials,  founded  upon  a  very  natural  reticence. 
Of  course,  their  safety  lay  in  the  sympathy  of 
a  large  number  of  neighbors  of  something  the 
same  kidney;  and  fear  of  retaliation  supplied 
the  only  remaining  motive  needed  to  enforce 
secrecy. 

Some  of  the  most  noted  bank  robberies  in 
which  the  above  mentioned  men,  or  some  of 
them,  were  known  to  have  been  engaged  were 
as  follows:  The  Clay  County  Savings  Associ- 
ation, of  Liberty,  Missouri,  February  14,  1866, 
in  which  a  little  boy  by  name  of  Wymore  was 
shot  to  pieces  because  he  obeyed  the  orders  of 
the  bank  cashier  and  gave  the  alarm;  the  bank 
of  Alexander  Mitchell  &  Co.,  Lexington,  Mis- 
souri, October  30,  1860;  the  McLain  Bank, 
of  Savannah,  Missouri,  March  2,  1867,  m 
which  Judge  McLain  was  shot  and  nearly 
killed;  the  Hughes  &  Mason  Bank,  of  Rich- 
mond, Missouri,  May  23,  1867,  and  the  later 
attack  on  the  jail,  in  which  Mayor  Shaw,  Sher- 
iff J.  B.  Griffin,  and  his  brave  fifteen-year-old 
boy  were  all  killed;  the  bank  of  Russellville, 
Kentucky,  March  20,  1868,  in  which  cashier 
Long  was  badly  beaten;  the  Daviess  County 


354  The  Story  of 

Savings  Bank,  of  Gallatin,  Missouri,  Decem- 
ber 7,  1869,  in  which  cashier  John  Sheets  was 
brutally  killed;  the  bank  of  Obocock  Brothers, 
Cory  don,  Iowa,  June  3,  1871,  in  which  forty 
thousand  dollars  was  taken,  although  no  one 
was  killed;  the  Deposit  Bank,  of  Columbia, 
Missouri,  April  29,  1872,  in  which  cashier  R. 
A.  C.  Martin  was  killed;  the  Savings  Associa- 
tion, of  Ste.  Genevieve,  Missouri;  the  Bank  of 
Huntington,  West  Virginia,  September  i,  1875, 
in  which  one  of  the  bandits,  McDaniels,  was 
killed;  the  Bank  of  Northfield,  Minnesota,  Sep- 
tember 7,  1876,  in  which  cashier  J.  L.  Hay- 
wood  was  killed,  A.  E.  Bunker  wounded,  and 
several  of  the  bandits  killed  and  captured  as 
later  described. 

These  same  men  or  some  of  them  also  robbed 
a  stage  coach  now  and  then ;  near  Hot  Springs, 
Arkansas,  for  example,  January  15,  1874, 
where  they  picked  up  four  thousand  dollars,  and 
included  ex-Governor  Burbank,  of  Dakota, 
among  their  victims,  taking  from  him  alone 
fifteen  hundred  dollars;  the  San  Antonio- 
Austin  coach,  in  Texas,  May  12,  1875,  m  which 
John  Breckenridge,  president  of  the  First 
National  Bank  of  San  Antonio,  was  relieved 
of  one  thousand  dollars;  and  the  Mammoth 


The  Outlaw  355 

Cave,  Kentucky,  stage,  September  3,  1880, 
where  they  took  nearly  two  thousand  dollars 
in  cash  and  jewelry  from  passengers  of  dis- 
tinction. 

The  most  daring  of  their  work,  however, 
and  that  which  brought  them  into  contact  with 
the  United  States  government  for  tampering 
with  the  mails,  was  their  repeated  robbery  of 
railway  mail  trains,  which  became  a  matter  of 
simplicity  and  certainty  in  their  hands.  To 
flag  a  train  or  to  stop  it  with  an  obstruction;  or 
to  get  aboard  and  mingle  with  the  train  crew, 
then  to  halt  the  train,  kill  any  one  who  opposed 
them,  and  force  the  opening  of  the  express 
agent's  safe,  became  a  matter  of  routine  with 
them  in  time,  and  the  amount  of  cash  they  thus 
obtained  was  staggering  in  the  total.  The 
most  noted  train  robberies  in  which  members 
of  the  James-Younger  bands  were  engaged 
were  the  Rock  Island  train  robbery  near  Coun- 
cil Bluffs,  Iowa,  July  21,  1873,  m  which  en- 
gineer Rafferty  was  killed  in  the  wreck,  and  but 
small  booty  secured;  the  Gad's  Hill,  Missouri, 
robbery  of  the  Iron  Mountain  train,  January 
28,  1874,  in  which  about  five  thousand  dollars 
was  secured  from  the  express  agent,  mail  bags 
and  passengers ;  the  Kansas-Pacific  train  robbery 


356  The  Story  of 

near  Muncie,  Kansas,  December  12,  1874,  in 
which  they  secured  more  than  fifty-five  thousand 
dollars  in  cash  and  gold  dust,  with  much  jew- 
elry; the  Missouri-Pacific  train  robbery  at 
Rocky  Cut,  July  7,  1876,  where  they  held  the 
train  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter  and  secured 
about  fifteen  thousand  dollars  in  all;  the  rob- 
bery of  the  Chicago  &  Alton  train  near  Glen- 
dale,  Missouri,  October  7,  1879,  m  which  the 
James  boys'  gang  secured  between  thirty-five 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  currency;  the  rob- 
bery of  the  Rock  Island  train  near  Winston, 
Missouri,  July  15,  1881,  by  the  James  boys' 
gang,  in  which  conductor  Westfall  was  killed, 
messenger  Murray  badly  beaten,  and  a  pas- 
senger named  MacMillan  killed,  little  booty 
being  obtained;  the  Blue  Cut  robbery  of  the 
Alton  train,  September  7,  1881,  in  which  the 
James  boys  and  eight  others  searched  every 
passenger  and  took  away  a  two-bushel  sack  full 
of  cash,  watches,  and  jewelry,  beating  the  ex- 
press messenger  badly  because  they  got  so  little 
from  the  safe.  This  last  robbery  caused  the 
resolution  of  Governor  Crittenden,  of  Missouri, 
to  take  the  bandits  dead  or  alive,  a  reward  of 
thirty  thousand  dollars  being  arranged  by  dif- 
ferent railways  and  express  companies,  a  price 


The  Outlaw  357 

of  ten  thousand  dollars  each  being  put  on  the 
heads  of  Frank  and  Jesse  James. 

Outside  of  this  long  list  of  the  bandit  gang's 
deeds  of  outlawry,  they  were  continually  in 
smaller  undertakings  of  a  similar  nature.  Once 
they  took  away  ten  thousand  dollars  in  cash 
at  the  box  office  of  the  Kansas  City  Fair,  this 
happening  September  26,  1872,  in  a  crowded 
city,  with  all  the  modern  machinery  of  the  law 
to  guard  its  citizens.  Many  acts  at  widely 
separated  parts  of  the  country  were  accredited 
to  the  Younger  or  the  James  boys,  and  al- 
though they  cannot  have  been  guilty  of  all  of 
them,  and,  although  many  of  the  adventures 
accredited  to  them  in  Texas,  Mexico,  Cali- 
fornia, the  Indian  Nations,  etc.,  bear  earmarks 
of  apocryphal  origin,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
for  twenty  years  after  the  close  of  the  civil 
war  they  made  a  living  in  this  way,  their  gang 
being  made  up  of  perhaps  a  score  of  different 
men  in  all,  and  usually  consisting  of  about  six 
to  ten  men,  according  to  the  size  of  the  under- 
taking on  hand. 

Meantime,  all  these  years,  the  list  of  homi- 
cides for  each  of  them  was  growing.  Jesse 
James  killed  three  men  out  of  six  who  attacked 
his  house  one  night,  and  not  long  after  Frank 


358  The  Story  of 

and  he  are  alleged  to  have  killed  six  men  in  a 
gambling  fight  in  California.  John  and  Jim 
Younger  killed  the  Pinkerton  detectives  Lull 
and  Daniels,  John  being  himself  killed  at  that 
time  by  Daniels.  A  little  later,  Frank  and  Jesse 
James  and  Clel  Miller  killed  detective  Wicher, 
of  the  same  agency,  torturing  him  for  some 
time  before  his  death  in  the  attempt  to  make 
him  divulge  the  Pinkerton  plans.  The  James 
boys  killed  Daniel  Askew  in  revenge ;  and  Jesse 
James  and  Jim  Anderson  killed  Ike  Flannery 
for  motives  of  robbery.  This  last  set  the  gang 
into  hostile  camps,  for  Flannery  was  a  nephew 
of  George  Shepherd.  Shepherd  later  killed 
Anderson  in  Texas  for  his  share  in  that  act; 
he  also  shot  Jesse  James  and  for  a  long  time 
supposed  he  had  killed  him. 

The  full  record  of  these  outlaws  will  never 
be  known.  Their  career  came  to  an  end  soon 
after  the  heavy  rewards  were  put  upon  their 
heads,  and  it  came  in  the  usual  way,  through 
treachery.  Allured  by  the  prospect  of  gaining 
ten  thousand  dollars,  two  cousins  of  Jesse 
James,  Bob  and  Charlie  Ford,  pretending  to 
join  his  gang  for  another  robbery,  became  mem- 
bers of  Jesse  James*  household  while  he  was 
living  incognito  as  Thomas  Howard.  On  the 


THE  OLD  FRITZ   RANCH 


A   BORDER   FORTRESS 


The  Outlaw  359 

morning  of  April  3,  1882,  Bob  Ford,  a  mere 
boy,  not  yet  twenty  years  of  age,  stepped  be- 
hind Jesse  James  as  he  was  standing  on  a  chair 
dusting  off  a  picture  frame,  and,  firing  at  close 
range,  shot  him  through  the  head  and  killed 
him.  Bob  Ford  never  got  much  respect  for 
his  act,  and  his  money  was  soon  gone.  He 
himself  was  killed  in  February,  1892,  at  Creede, 
Colorado,  by  a  man  named  Kelly. 

Jesse  James  was  about  five  feet  ten  inches 
in  height,  and  weighed  about  one  hundred  and 
sixty-five  pounds.  His  hair  and  eyes  were 
brown.  He  had,  during  his  life,  been  shot 
twice  through  the  lungs,  once  through  the  leg, 
and  had  lost  a  finger  of  the  left  hand  from 
a  bullet  wound.  Frank  James  was  slighter 
than  his  brother,  with  light  hair  and  blue  eyes, 
and  a  ragged,  reddish  mustache.  Frank  sur- 
rendered to  Governor  Crittenden  himself  at 
Jefferson  City,  in  October,  1882,  taking  off  his 
revolvers  and  saying  that  no  man  had  touched 
them  but  himself  since  1861.  He  was  sen- 
tenced to  the  penitentiary  for  life,  but  later  par- 
doned, as  he  was  thought  to  be  dying  of  con- 
sumption. At  this  writing,  he  is  still  alive, 
somewhat  old  and  bent  now,  but  leading  a  quiet 
and  steady  life,  and  showing  no  disposition  to 


360  The  Story  of 

return  to  his  old  ways.  He  is  sometimes  seen 
around  the  race  tracks,  where  he  does  but  little 
talking.  Frank  James  has  had  many  apolo- 
gists, and  his  life  should  be  considered  in  con- 
nection with  the  environments  in  which  he  grew 
up.  He  killed  many  men,  but  he  was  never  as 
cold  and  cruel  as  Jesse,  and  of  the  two  he  was 
the  braver  man,  men  say  who  knew  them  both. 
He  never  was  known  to  back  down  under  any 
circumstances. 

The  fate  of  the  Younger  boys  was  much  min- 
gled with  that  of  the  James  boys,  but  the  end 
of  the  careers  of  the  former  came  in  more 
dramatic  fashion.  The  wonder  is  that  both 
parties  should  have  clung  together  so  long,  for 
it  is  certain  that  Cole  Younger  once  intended  to 
kill  Jesse  James,  and  one  night  he  came  near 
killing  George  Shepherd  through  malicious 
statements  Jesse  James  had  made  to  him  about 
the  latter.  Shepherd  met  Cole  at  the  house  of 
a  friend  named  Hudspeth,  in  Jackson  county, 
and  their  host  put  them  in  the  same  bed  that 
night  for  want  of  better  accommodations. 
"After  we  lay  down,"  said  Shepherd  later,  in 
describing  this,  "I  saw  Cole  reach  up  under  his 
pillow  and  draw  out  a  pistol,  which  he  put  be- 
side him  under  the  cover.  Not  to  be  taken  un- 


The  Outlaw  361 

awares,  I  at  once  grasped  my  own  pistol  and 
shoved  it  down  under  the  covers  beside  me. 
Were  it  to  save  my  life,  I  couldn't  tell  what 
reason  Cole  had  for  becoming  my  enemy.  We 
talked  very  little,  but  just  lay  there  watching 
each  other.  He  was  behind  and  I  on  the  front 
side  of  the  bed,  and  during  the  entire  night  we 
looked  into  each  other's  eyes  and  never  moved. 
It  was  the  most  wretched  night  I  ever  passed 
in  my  life."  So  much  may  at  times  be  the 
price  of  being  "bad."  By  good  fortune,  they 
did  not  kill  each  other,  and  the  next  day  Cole 
told  Shepherd  that  he  had  expected  him  to  shoot 
on  sight,  as  Jesse  James  had  said  he  would. 
Explanations  then  followed.  It  nearly  came  to 
a  collision  between  Cole  Younger  and  Jesse 
James  later,  for  Cole  challenged  him  to  fight, 
and  it  was  only  with  difficulty  that  their  friends 
accommodated  the  matter. 

The  history  of  the  Younger  boys  is  tragic  all 
the  way  through.  Their  father  was  assassin- 
ated, their  mother  was  forced  to  set  fire  to  her 
own  house  and  destroy  it  under  penalty  of 
death;  three  sisters  were  arrested  and  confined 
in  a  barracks  at  Kansas  City,  which  during  a 
high  wind  fell  in,  killed  two  of  the  girls  and 
crippled  the  other.  John  Younger  was  a  mur- 


362  The  Story  of 

derer  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  and  how  many 
times  Cole  Younger  was  a  murderer,  with  or 
without  his  wish,  will  never  be  known.  He  was 
shot  three  times  in  one  fight  in  guerrilla  days, 
and  probably  few  bad  men  ever  carried  off 
more  lead  than  he. 

The  story  of  the  Northfield  bank  robbery 
in  Minnesota,  which  ended  so  disastrously  to 
the  bandits  who  undertook  it,  is  interesting  as 
showing  what  brute  courage,  and,  indeed,  what 
fidelity  and  fortitude  may  at  times  be  shown  by 
dangerous  specimens  of  bad  men.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  robbery  was  criminal,  its  carrying 
out  was  attended  with  murder,  and  the  revenge 
for  it  came  sharp  and  swift.  In  all  the  annals 
of  desperadoes,  there  is  not  a  battle  more  strik- 
ing than  this  which  occurred  in  a  sleepy  and 
contented  little  village  in  the  quiet  northern 
farming  country,  where  no  one  for  a  moment 
dreamed  that  the  bandits  of  the  rumored  bloody 
lands  along  the  Missouri  would  ever  trouble 
themselves  to  come.  The  events  immediately 
connected  with  this  tragedy,  the  result  of  which 
was  the  ending  of  the  Younger  gang,  were  as 
hereinafter  described. 

Bill  Chadwell,  alias  Styles,  a  member  of  the 
James  boys  gang,  had  formerly  lived  in  Minne- 


The  Outlaw  363 

sota.  He  drew  a  pleasing  picture  of  the  wealth 
of  that  country,  and  the  ease  with  which  it 
could  be  obtained  by  bandit  methods.  Cole 
Younger  was  opposed  to  going  so  far  from 
home,  but  was  overruled.  He  finally  joined  the 
others — Frank  and  Jesse  James,  Clel  Miller, 
Jim  and  Bob  Younger,  Charlie  Pitts  and  Chad- 
well.  They  went  to  Minnesota  by  rail,  and, 
after  looking  over  the  country,  purchased  good 
horses,  and  prepared  to  raid  the  little  town  of 
Northfield,  in  Rice  county.  They  carried  their 
enterprise  into  effect  on  September  7,  1876, 
using  methods  with  which  earlier  experience 
had  made  them  familiar.  They  rode  into  the 
middle  of  the  town  and  opened  fire,  ordering 
every  one  off  the  streets.  Jesse  James,  Charlie 
Pitts  and  Bob  Younger  entered  the  bank,  where 
they  found  cashier  J.  L.  Haywood,  with  two 
clerks,  Frank  Wilcox  and  A.  E.  Bunker.  Bun- 
ker started  to  run,  and  Bob  Younger  shot  him 
through  the  shoulder.  They  ordered  Haywood 
to  open  the  safe,  but  he  bluntly  refused,  even 
though  they  slightly  cut  him  in  the  throat  to 
enforce  obedience.  Firing  now  began  from  the 
citizens  on  the  street,  and  the  bandits  in  the 
bank  hurried  in  their  work,  contenting  them- 
selves with  such  loose  cash  as  they  found  in  the 


364  The  Story  of 

drawers  and  on  the  counter.  As  they  started 
to  leave  the  bank,  Haywood  made  a  motion  to- 
ward a  drawer  as  if  to  find  a  weapon.  Jesse 
James  turned  and  shot  him  through  the  head, 
killing  him  instantly.  These  three  of  the  ban- 
dits then  sprang  out  into  the  street.  They  were 
met  by  the  fire  of  Doctor  Wheeler  and  several 
other  citizens,  Hide,  Stacey,  Manning  and 
Bates.  Doctor  Wheeler  was  across  the  street 
in  an  upstairs  room,  and  as  Bill  Chadwell  un- 
dertook to  mount  his  horse,  Wheeler  fired  and 
shot  him  dead.  Manning  fired  at  Clel  Miller, 
who  had  mounted,  and  shot  him  from  his  horse. 
Cole  Younger  was  by  this  time  ready  to  retreat, 
but  he  rode  up  to  Miller,  and  removed  from 
his  body  his  belt  and  pistols.  Manning  fired 
again,  and  killed  the  horse  behind  which  Bob 
Younger  was  hiding,  and  an  instant  later  a  shot 
from  Wheeler  struck  Bob  in  the  right  elbow. 
Although  this  arm  was  disabled  Bob  shifted 
his  pistol  to  his  left  hand  and  fired  at  Bates, 
cutting  a  furrow  through  his  cheek,  but  not 
killing  him.  About  this  time  a  Norwegian  by 
the  name  of  Gustavson  appeared  on  the  street, 
and  not  halting  at  the  order  to  do  so,  he  was 
shot  through  the  head  by  one  of  the  bandits, 
receiving  a  wound  from  which  he  died  a  few 


The  Outlaw  365 

days  later.  The  gang  then  began  to  scatter  and 
retreat.  Jim  Younger  was  on  foot  and  was 
wounded.  Cole  rode  back  up  the  street,  and 
took  the  wounded  man  on  his  horse  behind  him. 
The  entire  party  then  rode  out  of  town  to  the 
west,  not  one  of  them  escaping  without  severe 
wounds. 

As  soon  as  the  bandits  had  departed,  news 
was  sent  by  telegraph,  notifying  the  surround- 
ing country  of  the  robbery.  Sheriffs,  police- 
men and  detectives  rallied  in  such  numbers  that 
the  robbers  were  hard  put  to  it  to  escape  alive. 
A  state  reward  of  $1,000  for  each  was  pub- 
lished, and  all  lower  Minnesota  organized  it- 
self into  a  determined  man  hunt.  The  gang 
undertook  to  get  over  the  Iowa  line,  and  they 
managed  to  keep  away  from  their  pursuers  until 
the  morning  of  the  i3th,  a  week  after  the  rob- 
bery. The  six  survivors  were  surrounded  on 
that  day  in  a  strip  of  timber.  Frank  and  Jesse 
James  broke  through,  riding  the  same  horse. 
They  were  fired  upon,  a  bullet  striking  Frank 
James  in  the  right  knee,  and  passing  through 
into  Jesse's  right  thigh.  None  the  less,  the  two 
got  away,  stole  a  horse  apiece  that  night,  and 
passed  on  to  the  Southwest.  They  rode  bare- 
back, and  now  and  again  enforced  a  horse  trade 


366  The  Story  of 

with  a  farmer  or  livery-stable  man.  They  got 
down  near  Sioux  Falls,  and  there  met  Doctor 
Mosher,  whom  they  compelled  to  dress  their 
wounds,  and  to  furnish  them  horses  and  cloth- 
ing. Later  on  their  horses  gave  out,  and  they 
hired  a  wagon  and  kept  on.  Their  escape  seems 
incomprehensible,  yet  it  is  the  case  that  they 
got  quite  clear,  finally  reaching  Missouri. 

Of  the  other  bandits  there  were  left  Cole, 
Jim  and  Bob  Younger  and  Charlie  Pitts;  and 
after  these  a  large  number  of  citizens  followed 
close.  In  spite  of  the  determined  pursuit,  they 
kept  out  of  reach  for  another  week.  On  the 
morning  of  September  2ist,  two  weeks  after 
the  robbery,  they  were  located  in  the  woods 
along  the  Watonwan  river,  not  far  from  Made- 
lia.  Sheriff  Glispin  hurriedly  got  together  a 
posse  and  surrounded  them  in  a  patch  of  timber 
not  over  five  acres  in  extent.  In  a  short  time 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  were 
about  this  cover;  but  although  they  kept  up  fir- 
ing, they  could  not  drive  out  the  concealed  ban- 
dits. Sheriff  Glispin  called  for  volunteers;  and 
with  Colonel  Vaught,  Ben  Rice,  George  Brad- 
ford, James  Severson,  Charles  Pomeroy  and 
Captain  Murphy  moved  into  the  cover.  As 
they  advanced,  Charlie  Pitts  sprang  out  from 


The  Outlaw  367 

the  brush,  and  fired  point  blank  at  Glispin.  At 
the  same  instant  the  latter  also  fired  and  shot 
Pitts,  who  ran  a  short  distance  and  fell  dead. 
Then  Cole,  Bob  and  Jim  Younger  stood  up  and 
opened  fire  as  best  they  could,  all  of  the  men 
of  the  storming  party  returning  their  fire.  Mur- 
phy was  struck  in  the  body  by  a  bullet,  and 
his  life  was  saved  by  his  pipe,  which  he  carried 
in  his  vest  pocket.  Another  member  of  the 
posse  had  his  watch  blown  to  pieces  by  a  bul- 
let. The  Younger  boys  gave  back  a  little,  but 
this  brought  them  within  sight  of  those  sur- 
rounding the  thicket,  so  they  retreated  again 
close  to  the  line  of  the  volunteers.  Cole  and 
Jim  Younger  were  now  badly  shot.  Bob,  with 
his  broken  right  arm,  stood  his  ground,  the 
only  one  able  to  continue  the  fight,  and  kept 
his  revolver  going  with  his  left  hand.  The 
others  handed  him  their  revolvers  after  his  own 
was  empty.  The  firing  from  the  posse  still 
continued,  and  at  last  Bob  called  out  to  them 
to  stop,  as  his  brothers  were  all  shot  to  pieces. 
He  threw  down  his  pistol,  and  walked  forward 
to  the  sheriff,  to  whom  he  surrendered.  Bob 
always  spoke  with  respect  of  Sheriff  Glispin 
both  as  a  fighter  and  as  a  peace  officer.  One  of 
the  farmers  drew  up  his  gun  to  kill  Bob  after 


368  The  Story  of 

he  had  surrendered,  but  Glispin  told  him  to 
drop  his  gun  or  he  would  kill  him. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  set  of  men  ever  showed 
more  determination  and  more  ability  to  stand 
punishment  than  these  misled  outlaws.  Bob 
Younger  was  hurt  less  than  any  of  the  others. 
His  arm  had  been  broken  at  Northfield  two 
weeks  before,  but  he  was  wounded  but  once, 
slightly  in  the  body,  out  of  all  the  shots  fired 
at  him  while  in  the  thicket.  Cole  Younger 
had  a  rifle  bullet  in  the  right  cheek,  which 
paralyzed  his  right  eye.  He  had  received  a 
.45  revolver  bullet  through  the  body,  and  also 
had  been  shot  through  the  thigh  at  Northfield. 
He  received  eleven  different  wounds  in  the  fight, 
or  thirteen  bad  wounds  in  all,  enough  to  have 
killed  a  half  dozen  men.  Jim's  case  seemed 
even  worse,  for  he  had  in  his  body  eight  buck- 
shot and  a  rifle  bullet.  He  had  been  shot 
through  the  shoulder  at  Northfield,  and  nearly 
half  his  lower  jaw  had  been  carried  away  by  a 
heavy  bullet,  a  wound  which  caused  him  intense 
suffering.  Bob  was  the  only  one  able  to  stand 
on  his  feet. 

Of  the  two  men  killed  in  town,  Clel  Miller 
and  Bill  Chadwell,  the  former  had  a  long  rec- 
ord in  bank  robberies;  the  latter,  guide  in  the 


The   Outlaw  369 

ill-fated  expedition  to  Minnesota,  was  a  horse 
thief  of  considerable  note  at  one  time  in  lower 
Minnesota. 

The  prisoners  were  placed  in  jail  at  Fari- 
bault,  the  county  seat  of  Rice  county,  and  in  a 
short  time  the  Grand  Jury  returned  true  bills 
against  them,  charging  them  with  murder  and 
robbery.  Court  convened  November  yth, 
Judge  Lord  being  on  the  bench.  All  of  the 
prisoners  pleaded  guilty,  and  the  order  of 
the  court  was  that  each  should  be  confined  in  the 
state  penitentiary  for  the  period  of  his  natural 
life. 

The  later  fate  of  the  Younger  boys  may  be 
read  in  the  succinct  records  of  the  Minnesota 
State  Prison  at  Stillwater: 

"Thos.  Coleman  Younger,  sentenced  Nov. 
20,  1876,  from  Rice  county  under  a  life  sen- 
tence for  the  crime  of  Murder  in  the  first  de- 
gree. Paroled  July  14,  1901.  Pardoned  Feb. 
4,  1903,  on  condition  that  he  leave  the  State 
of  Minnesota,  and  that  he  never  exhibit  himself 
in  public  in  any  way. 

"James  Younger,  sentenced  Nov.  20,  1876, 
from  Rice  county  under  a  life  sentence  for  the 
crime  of  Murder  in  the  first  degree.  Paroled 
July  13,  1901.  Shot  himself  with  a  revolver 


37°  The  Story  of 

in  the  city  of  St.  Paul,  Minn.,  and  died  at  once 
from  the  wound  inflicted  on  Oct.  19,  1902. 

"Robt.  Younger,  sentenced  Nov.  20,  1876, 
from  Rice  county  under  a  life  sentence  for  the 
crime  of  Murder  in  the  first  degree.  He  died 
Sept.  1 6,  1889,  of  phthisis." 

The  James  boys  almost  miraculously  escaped, 
traveled  clear  across  the  State  of  Iowa  and  got 
back  to  their  old  haunts.  They  did  not  stop, 
but  kept  on  going  until  they  got  to  Mexico, 
where  they  remained  for  some  time.  They  did 
not  take  their  warning,  however,  and  some  of 
their  most  desperate  train  robberies  were  com- 
mitted long  after  the  Younger  boys  were  in  the 
penitentiary. 

In  view  of  the  bloody  careers  of  all  these 
men,  it  is  to  be  said  that  the  law  has  been  sin- 
gularly lenient  with  them.  Yet  the  Northfield 
incident  was  conclusive,  and  was  the  worst  back- 
set ever  received  by  any  gang  of  bad  men ;  un- 
less, perhaps,  that  was  the  defeat  of  the  Dalton 
gang  at  Coffeyville,  Kansas,  some  years  later, 
the  story  of  which  is  given  in  the  following 
chapter. 


The  Outlaw  371 


Chapter  XXI 

Bad  Men  of  the  Indian  Nations — A  Hotbed 
of  Desperadoes — Reasons  for  Bad  Men  in  the 
Indian  Nations — The  Dalton  Boys — The  Most 
Desperate  Street  Fight  of  the  West.  :  :  : 

WHAT  is  true  for  Texas,  in  the  record 
of  desperadoism,  is  equally  applica- 
ble to  the  country  adjoining  Texas 
upon  the  north,  long  known  under  the  general 
title  of  the  Indian  Nations;  although  it  is  now 
rapidly  being  divided  and  allotted  under  the  in- 
creasing demands  of  an  ever-advancing  civili- 
zation. 

The  great  breeding  ground  of  outlaws  has 
ever  been  along  the  line  of  demarcation  be- 
tween the  savage  and  the  civilized.  Here  in 
the  Indian  country,  as  though  in  a  hotbed  espe- 
cially contrived,  the  desperado  has  flourished 
for  generations.  The  Indians  themselves  re- 
tained much  their  old  savage  standards  after 


372  The  Story  of 

they  had  been  placed  in  this  supposedly  perpet- 
ual haven  of  refuge  by  the  government.  They 
have  been  followed,  ever  since  the  first  move- 
ment of  the  tribes  into  these  reservations,  by 
numbers  of  unscrupulous  whites  such  as  hang 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  settlements  and  rebel  at 
the  requirements  of  civilization.  Many  white 
men  of  certain  type  married  among  the  Indians, 
and  the  half-breed  is  reputed  as  a  product  in- 
heriting the  bad  traits  of  both  races  and  the 
good  ones  of  neither — a  sweeping  statement  not 
always  wholly  true.  Among  these  also  was  a 
large  infusion  of  negro  blood,  emanating  from 
the  slaves  brought  in  by  the  Cherokees,  and 
added  to  later  by  negroes  moving  in  and  marry- 
ing among  the  tribes.  These  mixed  bloods 
seem  to  have  been  little  disposed  toward  the 
ways  of  law  and  order.  Moreover,  the  system 
of  law  was  here,  of  course,  altogether  different 
from  that  of  the  States.  The  freedom  from  re- 
straint, the  exemption  from  law,  which  always 
marked  the  border,  here  found  their  last  abid- 
ing place.  The  Indians  were  not  adherents  to 
the  white  man's  creed,  save  as  to  the  worst  fea- 
tures, and  they  kept  their  own  creed  of  blood. 
No  man  will  ever  know  how  many  murders 
have  been  committed  in  these  fair  and  pleasant 


The  Outlaw  373 

savannahs,  among  these  rough  hills  or  upon 
these  rolling  grassy  plains  from  the  time  Wil- 
liam Clark,  the  "Red  Head  Chief,"  began  the 
government  work  of  settling  the  tribes  in  these 
lands,  then  supposed  to  be  far  beyond  the 
possible  demands  of  the  white  population  of 
America. 

Life  could  be  lived  here  with  small  exertion. 
The  easy  gifts  of  the  soil  and  the  chase,  coupled 
with  the  easy  gifts  of  the  government,  unsettled 
the  minds  of  all  from  those  habits  of  steady  in- 
dustry and  thrift  which  go  with  the  observance 
of  the  law.  If  one  coveted  his  neighbor's  pos- 
sessions, the  ready  arbitrament  of  firearms  told 
whose  were  the  spoils.  Human  life  has  been 
cheap  here  for  more  than  half  a  hundred  years ; 
and  this  condition  has  endured  directly  up  to 
and  into  the  days  of  white  civilization.  The 
writer  remembers  very  well  that  in  his  hunting 
expeditions  of  twenty  years  ago  it  was  always 
held  dangerous  to  go  into  the  Nations ;  and  this 
was  true  whether  parties  went  in  across  the 
Neutral  Strip,  or  farther  east  among  the  Osages 
or  the  Creeks.  The  country  below  Coffeyville 
was  wild  and  remote  as  we  saw  it  then,  although 
now  it  is  settling  up,  is  traversed  by  railroads, 
and  is  slowly  passing  into  the  hands  of  white 


374  TAe  Story  of 

men  in  severalty,  as  fast  as  the  negroes  release 
their  lands,  or  as  fast  as  the  government  allows 
the  Indians  to  give  individual  titles.  In  those 
days  it  was  a  matter  of  small  concern  if  a  trav- 
eler never  returned  from  a  journey  among  the 
timber  clad  mountains,  or  the  black  jack  thickets 
along  the  rivers;  and  many  was  the  murder 
committed  thereabouts  that  never  came  to  light. 

In  and  around  the  Indian  Nations  there  have 
also  always  been  refugees  from  the  upper  fron- 
tier or  from  Texas  or  Arkansas.  The  country 
was  long  the  natural  haven  of  the  lawless,  as 
it  has  long  been  the  designated  home  of  a  wild 
population.  In  this  region  the  creed  has  been 
much  the  same  even  after  the  wild  ethics  of  the 
cow  men  yielded  to  the  scarcely  more  lawful 
methods  of  the  land  boomer. 

Each  man  in  the  older  days  had  his  own  no- 
tion of  personal  conduct,  as  each  had  his  own 
opinions  about  the  sacredness  of  property.  It 
was  natural  that  train  robbing  and  bank  loot- 
ing should  become  recognized  industries  when 
the  railroads  and  towns  came  into  this  fertile 
region,  so  long  left  sacred  to  the  chase.  The 
gangs  of  such  men  as  the  Cook  boys,  the  Wick- 
cliffe  boys,  or  the  Dalton  boys,  were  natural  and 
logical  products  of  an  environment.  That  this 


The  Outlaw  375 

should  be  the  more  likely  may  be  seen  from  the 
fact  that  for  a  decade  or  more  preceding  the 
great  rushes  of  the  land  grabbers,  the  exploits 
of  the  James  and  Younger  boys  in  train  and 
bank  robbing  had  filled  all  the  country  with  the 
belief  that  the  law  could  be  defied  successfully 
through  a  long  term  of  years.  The  Cook  boys 
acted  upon  this  basis,  until  at  length  marshals 
shot  them  both,  killed  one  and  sent  the  rem- 
nants of  the  other  to  the  penitentiary. 

Since  it  would  be  impossible  to  go  into  any 
detailed  mention  of  the  scores  and  hundreds 
of  desperadoes  who  have  at  different  times  been 
produced  by  the  Nations,  it  may  be  sufficient  to 
give  a  few  of  the  salient  features  of  the  careers 
of  the  band  which,  as  well  as  any,  may  be 
called  typical  of  the  Indian  Nations  brand  of 
desperadoism — the  once  notorious  Dalton  boys. 

The  Dalton  family  lived  in  lower  Kansas, 
near  Coffeyville,  which  was  situated  almost  di- 
rectly upon  the  border  of  the  Nations.  They 
engaged  in  farming,  and  indeed  two  of  the 
family  were  respectable  farmers  near  Coffey- 
ville within  the  last  three  or  four  years.  The 
mother  of  the  family  still  lives  near  Oklahoma 
City,  where  she  secured  a  good  claim  at  the  time 
of  the  opening  of  the  Oklahoma  lands  to  white 


376  The  Story  of 

settlement.  The  father,  Lewis  Dalton,  was  a 
Kentucky  man  and  served  in  the  Mexican  war. 
He  later  moved  to  Jackson  county,  Missouri, 
near  the  home  of  the  notorious  James  and 
Younger  boys,  and  in  1851  married  Adelaide 
Younger,  they  removing  some  years  later  from 
Missouri  to  Kansas.  Thirteen  children  were 
born  to  them,  nine  sons  and  four  daughters. 
Charles,  Henry,  Littleton  and  Coleman  Dal- 
ton were  respected  and  quiet  citizens.  All  the 
boys  had  nerve,  and  many  of  them  reached  of- 
fice as  deputy  marshals.  Franklin  Dalton  was 
killed  while  serving  as  deputy  United  States 
marshal  near  Fort  Smith,  in  1887,  his  brother 
Bob  being  a  member  of  the  same  posse  at  the 
time  his  fight  was  made  with  a  band  of  horse 
thieves  who  resisted  arrest.  Grattan  Dalton, 
after  the  death  of  his  brother  Franklin,  was 
made  a  deputy  United  States  marshal,  after 
the  curious  but  efficient  Western  fashion  of  set- 
ting dangerous  men  to  work  at  catching  danger- 
ous men.  He  and  his  posse  in  1888  went  after 
a  bad  Indian,  who,  in  the  melee,  shot  Grattan 
in  the  arm  and  escaped.  Grattan  later  served 
as  United  States  deputy  marshal  in  Muskogee 
district,  where  the  courts  certainly  needed  men 
of  stern  courage  as  executives,  for  they  had  to 


The  Outlaw  377 

deal  with  the  most  desperate  and  fearless  class 
of  criminals  the  world  ever  knew.  Robert  R. 
Dalton,  better  known  as  Bob  Dalton,  served  on 
the  posses  of  his  brothers,  and  soon  learned 
what  it  was  to  stand  up  and  shoot  while  being 
shot  at.  He  turned  out  to  be  about  the  boldest 
of  the  family,  and  was  accepted  as  the  clan 
leader  later  on  in  their  exploits.  He  also  was 
a  deputy  United  States  marshal  at  the  danger- 
ous stations  of  Fort  Smith  and  Wichita,  having 
much  to  do  with  the  desperadoes  of  the  Nations. 
He  was  chief  of  the  Osage  police  for  some  time, 
and  saw  abundance  of  violent  scenes.  Emmett 
Dalton  was  also  possessed  of  cool  nerve,  and 
was  soon  known  as  a  dangerous  man  to  affront. 
All  the  boys  were  good  shots,  but  they  seemed 
to  have  cared  more  for  the  Winchester  than 
the  six-shooter  in  their  exploits,  in  which  they 
were  perhaps  wise,  for  the  rifle  is  of  course  far 
the  surer  when  it  is  possible  of  use;  and  men 
mostly  rode  in  that  country  with  rifle  under  leg. 
Uncle  Sam  is  obliged  to  take  such  material 
for  his  frontier  peace  officers  as  proves  itself 
efficient  in  serving  processes.  A  coward  may  be 
highly  moral,  but  he  will  not  do  as  a  border 
deputy.  The  personal  character  of  some  of  the 
most  famous  Western  deputies  would  scarcely 


378  The  Story  of 

bear  careful  scrutiny,  but  the  government  at 
Washington  is  often  obliged  to  wink  at  that 
sort  of  thing.  There  came  a  time  when  it  re- 
mained difficult  longer  to  wink  at  the  methods 
of  the  Daltons  as  deputies.  In  one  case  they 
ran  off  with  a  big  bunch  of  horses  and  sold  them 
in  a  Kansas  town.  On  account  of  this  episode, 
Grattan,  William,  and  Emmett  Dalton  made  a 
hurried  trip  to  California.  Here  they  became 
restless,  and  went  back  at  their  old  trade,  think- 
ing that  no  one  even  on  the  Pacific  Slope  had 
any  right  to  cause  them  fear.  They  held  up 
a  train  in  Tulare  county  and  killed  a  fireman, 
but  were  repulsed.  Later  arrested  and  tried, 
William  was  cleared,  but  Grattan  was  sentenced 
to  twenty  years  in  the  penitentiary.  He  escaped 
from  jail  before  he  got  to  the  penitentiary,  and 
rejoined  Emmett  at  the  old  haunts  in  the  Na- 
tions, Emmett  having  evaded  arrest  in  Cali- 
fornia. The  Southern  Pacific  railway  had  a 
standing  offer  of  $6,000  for  the  robbers  at  the 
time  they  were  killed. 

The  Daltons  were  now  more  or  less  obliged 
to  hide  out,  and  to  make  a  living  as  best  they 
could,  which  meant  by  robbery.  On  May  9, 
1891,  the  Santa  Fe  train  was  held  up  at  Whar- 
ton,  Oklahoma  Territory,  and  the  express  car 


The  Outlaw  379 

was  robbed,  the  bandits  supposedly  being  the 
Daltons.  In  June  of  the  following  year  another 
Santa  Fe  train  was  robbed  at  Red  Rock,  in  the 
Cherokee  strip.  The  'Frisco  train  was  robbed 
at  Vinita,  Indian  Territory.  An  epidemic  of 
the  old  methods  of  the  James  and  Younger 
bands  seemed  to  have  broken  out  in  the  new 
railway  region  of  the  Southwest.  The  next 
month  the  Missouri,  Kansas  and  Texas  train 
was  held  up  at  Adair,  Indian  Territory,  and  a 
general  fight  ensued  between  the  robbers  and 
the  armed  guard  of  the  train,  assisted  by  citi- 
zens of  the  town.  A  local  physician  was  killed 
and  several  officers  and  citizens  wounded,  but 
none  of  the  bandits  was  hurt,  and  they  got  away 
with  a  heavy  loot  of  the  express  and  baggage 
cars.  At  Wharton  they  had  been  less  fortunate, 
for  though  they  killed  the  station  agent,  they 
were  rounded  up  and  one  of  their  men,  Dan 
Bryant,  was  captured,  later  killing  and  being 
killed  by  United  States  deputy  Ed.  Short,  as 
mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Dick  Broad- 
well  joined  the  Dalton  gang  about  now,  and 
they  nearly  always  had  a  few  members  besides 
those  of  their  own  family;  their  gang  being 
made  up  and  conducted  on  much  the  same  lines 
of  the  James  boys  gang  of  Missouri,  whose  ex- 


380  The  Story  of 

ploits  they  imitated  and  used  as  text  for  their 
bolder  deeds.  In  fact  it  was  the  boast  of  the 
leader,  Bob  Dalton,  in  the  Coffeyville  raid,  that 
he  was  going  to  beat  anything  the  James  boys 
ever  did:  to  rob  two  banks  in  one  town  at  the 
same  time. 

Bank  robbing  was  a  side  line  of  activity  with 
the  Daltons,  but  they  did  fairly  well  at  it.  They 
held  up  the  bank  at  El  Reno,  at  a  time  when 
no  one  was  in  the  bank  except  the  president's 
wife,  and  took  $10,000,  obliging  the  bank  to 
suspend  business.  By  this  time  the  whole  coun- 
try was  aroused  against  them,  as  it  had  been 
against  the  James  and  Younger  boys.  Pinker- 
ton  detectives  had  blanket  commissions  offered, 
and  railway  and  express  companies  offered  re- 
wards running  into  the  thousands.  Each  train 
across  the  Indian  Nations  was  accompanied  for 
months  by  a  heavily  armed  guard  concealed  in 
the  baggage  and  express  cars.  Passengers 
dreaded  the  journey  across  that  country,  and  the 
slightest  halt  of  the  train  for  any  cause  was 
sure  to  bring  to  the  lips  of  all  the  word  of  fear, 
"the  Daltons!"  It  seems  almost  incredible  of 
belief  that,  in  these  modern  days  of  fast  rail- 
way service,  of  the  telegraph  and  of  rapidly  in- 
creasing settlements,  the  work  of  these  men 


The  Outlaw  381 

could  so  long  have  been  continued;  but  such, 
none  the  less,  was  the  case.  The  law  was  power- 
less, and  demonstrated  its  own  unfitness  to  safe- 
guard life  and  property,  as  so  often  it  has  in  this 
country.  And,  as  so  often  has  been  the  case, 
outraged  society  at  length  took  the  law  into 
its  own  hands  and  settled  the  matter. 

The  full  tale  of  the  Dalton  robberies  and 
murders  will  never  be  known,  for  the  region 
in  which  they  operated  was  reticent,  having  its 
own  secrets  to  protect;  but  at  last  there  came 
the  climax  in  which  the  band  was  brought  into 
the  limelight  of  civilized  publicity.  They  lived 
on  the  border  of  savagery  and  civilization.  Now 
the  press,  the  telegraph,  the  whole  fabric  of 
modern  life,  lay  near  at  hand.  Their  last  bold 
raid,  therefore,  in  which  they  crossed  from  the 
country  of  reticence  into  that  of  garrulous  news 
gathering,  made  them  more  famous  than  they 
had  ever  been  before.  The  raid  on  Coffeyville, 
October  5,  1892,  both  established  and  ended 
their  reputation  as  desperadoes  of  the  border. 

The  rumor  got  out  that  the  Daltons  were 
down  in  the  Nations,  waiting  for  a  chance  to 
raid  the  town  of  Coffeyville,  but  the  dreaded 
attack  did  not  come  off  when  it  was  expected. 
When  it  was  delivered,  therefore,  it  found  the 


382  The  Story  of 

town  quite  unprepared.  Bob  Dalton  was  the 
leader  in  this  enterprise.  Emmett  did  not  want 
to  go.  He  declared  that  too  many  people  knew 
them  in  Coffeyville,  and  that  the  job  would 
prove  too  big  for  them  to  handle.  He  con- 
sented to  join  the  party,  however,  when  he 
found  Bob  determined  to  make  the  attempt  in 
any  case.  There  were  in  the  band  at  that  time 
Bob,  Emmett,  and  Grattan  Dalton,  Bill  Powers 
and  Dick  Broadwell.  These  lay  in  rendezvous 
near  Tulsa,  in  the  Osage  country,  two  days  be- 
fore the  raid,  and  spent  the  night  before  in 
the  timber  on  Onion  creek,  not  far  below  town. 
They  rode  into  Coffeyville  at  half-past  nine 
the  following  morning.  The  street  being  some- 
what torn  up,  they  turned  aside  into  an  alley 
about  a  hundred  yards  from  the  main  street, 
and,  dismounting,  tied  their  horses,  which  were 
thus  left  some  distance  from  the  banks,  the 
First  National  and  the  bank  of  C.  M.  Condon 
&  Co.,  which  were  the  objects  of  their  design. 

Grattan  Dalton,  Dick  Broadwell  and  Bill 
Powers  stepped  over  to  the  Condon  bank,  which 
was  occupied  at  the  time  by  C.  T.  Carpenter, 
C.  M.  Ball,  the  cashier,  and  T.  C.  Babb,  a  book- 
keeper. Grattan  Dalton  threw  down  his  rifle 
on  Carpenter,  with  the  customary  command  to 


The  Outlaw  383 

put  up  his  hands;  the  others  being  attended  to 
by  Powers  and  Broadwell.  Producing  a  two- 
bushel  sack,  the  leader  ordered  Carpenter  to 
put  all  the  cash  into  it,  and  the  latter  obeyed, 
placing  three  thousand  dollars  in  silver  and  one 
thousand  in  currency  in  the  sack.  Grattan 
wanted  the  gold,  and  demanded  that  an  inner 
safe  inside  the  vault  should  be  opened.  The 
cashier,  Ball,  with  a  shifty  falsehood,  told  him 
that  they  could  not  open  that  safe,  for  it  was  set 
on  a  time  lock,  and  no  one  could  open  it  before 
half-past  nine  o'clock.  He  told  the  outlaw  that 
it  was  now  twenty  minutes  after  nine  (although 
it  was  really  twenty  minutes  of  ten)  ;  and  the 
latter  said  they  could  wait  ten  minutes.  He 
was,  however,  uneasy,  and  was  much  of  the 
mind  to  kill  Ball  on  the  spot,  for  he  suspected 
treachery,  and  knew  how  dangerous  any  delay 
must  be. 

It  was  a  daring  thing  to  do — to  sit  down  in 
the  heart  of  a  civilized  city,  in  broad  daylight 
and  on  the  most  public  street,  and  wait  for  a 
time  lock  to  open  a  burglar-proof  safe.  Daring 
as  it  was,  it  was  foolish  and  futile.  As  the  rob- 
bers stood  uneasily  guarding  their  prisoners, 
the  alarm  was  spread.  A  moment  later  firing 
began,  and  the  windows  of  the  bank  were  splin- 


384  The  Story  of 

tered  with  bullets.  The  robbers  were  trapped, 
Broadwell  being  now  shot  through  the  arm, 
probably  by  P.  L.  Williams  from  across  the 
street.  Yet  they  coolly  went  on  with  their 
work  as  they  best  could,  Grattan  Dalton  order- 
ing Ball  to  cut  the  string  of  the  bag  and  pour 
out  the  heavy  silver,  which  would  have  encum- 
bered them  too  much  in  their  flight.  He  asked 
if  there  was  not  a  back  way  out,  by  which  they 
could  escape.  He  was  shown  a  rear  door,  and 
the  robbers  stepped  out,  to  find  themselves  in 
the  middle  of  the  hottest  street  fight  any  of 
them  had  ever  known.  The  city  marshal, 
Charles  T.  Connolly,  had  given  the  alarm,  and 
citizens  were  hurrying  to  the  street  with  such 
weapons  as  they  could  find  at  the  hardware 
stores  and  in  their  own  homes. 

Meantime  Bob  and  Emmett  Dalton  had  held 
up  the  First  National  Bank,  ordering  cashier 
Ayres  to  hand  out  the  money,  and  terrorizing 
two  or  three  customers  of  the  bank  who  hap- 
pened to  be  present  at  the  time.  Bob  knew 
Thos.  G.  Ayres,  and  called  him  by  his  first 
name,  "Tom,"  said  he,  "go  into  the  safe  and 
get  out  that  money — get  the  gold,  too."  He 
followed  Ayres  into  the  vault,  and  discovered 
two  packages  of  $5,000  each  in  currency,  which 


The  Outlaw  385 

he  tossed  into  his  meal  sack.  The  robbers  here 
also  poured  out  the  silver,  and  having  cleaned 
up  the  bank  as  they  supposed,  drove  the  occu- 
pants out  of  the  door  in  front  of  them.  As 
they  got  into  the  street  they  were  fired  upon 
by  George  Cubine  and  C.  S.  Cox;  but  neither 
shot  took  effect.  Emmett  Dalton  stood  with 
his  rifle  under  his  arm,  coolly  tying  up  the  neck 
of  the  sack  which  held  the  money.  They  then 
both  stepped  back  into  the  bank,  and  went  out 
through  the  back  door,  which  was  opened  for 
them  by  W.  H.  Shepherd,  the  bank  teller,  who, 
with  Tom  Ayres  and  B.  S.  Ayres,  the  book- 
keeper, made  the  bank  force  on  hand.  J.  H. 
Brewster,  C.  H.  Hollingsworth  and  A.  W. 
Knotts  were  in  the  bank  on  business,  and  were 
joined  by  E.  S.  Boothby;  all  these  being  left 
unhurt. 

The  firing  became  general  as  soon  as  the  rob- 
bers emerged  from  the  two  bank  buildings. 
The  first  man  to  be  shot  by  the  robbers  was 
Charles  T.  Gump,  who  stood  not  far  from  the 
First  National  Bank  armed  with  a  shotgun. 
Before  he  could  fire  Bob  Dalton  shot  him 
through  the  hand,  the  same  bullet  disabling  his 
shotgun.  A  moment  later,  a  young  man  named 
Lucius  Baldwin  started  down  the  alley,  armed 


3 86  The  Story  of 

with  a  revolver.  He  met  Bob  and  Emmett, 
who  ordered  him  to  halt,  but  for  some  reason 
he  kept  on  toward  them.  Bob  Dalton  said, 
"I'll  have  to  kill  you,"  and  so  shot  him  through 
the  chest.  He  died  three  hours  later. 

Bob  and  Emmett  Dalton  now  passed  out  of 
the  alley  back  of  the  First  National  Bank,  and 
came  into  Union  street.  Here  they  saw  George 
B.  Cubine  standing  with  his  Winchester  in  his 
hands,  and  an  instant  later  Cubine  fell  dead, 
with  three  balls  through  his  body.  Near  him 
was  Charles  Brown,  an  old  man,  who  was  also 
armed.  He  was  the  next  victim,  his  body  fall- 
ing near  that  of  Cubine,  though  he  lived  for  a 
few  hours  after  being  shot.  All  four  of  these 
victims  of  the  Daltons  were  shot  at  distances 
of  about  forty  or  fifty  yards,  and  with  rifles, 
the  revolver  being  more  or  less  uncertain  at  such 
ranges  even  in  practiced  hands.  All  the  gang 
had  revolvers,  but  none  used  them. 

Thos.  G.  Ayres,  late  prisoner  in  the  First 
National  Bank,  ran  into  a  store  near  by  as  soon 
as  he  was  released,  caught  up  a  Winchester  and 
took  a  station  near  the  street  door,  waiting  for 
the  bandits  to  come  out  at  that  entrance  of  the 
bank.  Here  he  was  seen  by  Bob  Dalton,  who 
had  gone  through  the  alley.  Bob  took  aim 


The  Outlaw  387 

and  at  seventy-five  yards  shot  Ayres  through 
the  head.  Friends  tried  to  draw  his  body  back 
into  the  store,  but  these  now  met  the  fire  of 
Grattan  Dalton  and  Powers,  who,  with  the  crip- 
pled Broadwell,  were  now  coming  out  of  their 
alleyway. 

T.  A.  Reynolds,  a  clerk  in  the  same  store, 
who  went  to  the  door  armed,  received  a  shot 
through  the  foot,  and  thus  made  the  third 
wounded  man  then  in  that  building.  H.  H. 
Isham,  one  of  the  owners  of  the  store,  aided 
by  M.  A.  Anderson  and  Charles  K.  Smith, 
joined  in  the  firing.  Grattan  Dalton  and  Bill 
Powers  were  shot  mortally  before  they  had 
gone  more  than  a  few  steps  from  the  door  of 
the  Condon  bank.  Powers  tried  to  get  into  a 
door  when  he  was  shot,  and  kept  his  feet  when 
he  found  the  door  locked,  managing  to  get  to 
his  horse  in  the  alley  before  he  was  killed  by  a 
second  shot.  Grattan  Dalton  also  kept  his  feet, 
and  reached  cover  back  of  a  barn  about  seventy 
yards  from  Walnut  Street,  the  main  thorough- 
fare. He  stood  at  bay  here,  and  kept  on  firing. 
City  marshal  Connolly,  carrying  a  rifle,  ran 
across  to  a  spot  near  the  corner  of  this  barn. 
He  had  his  eye  on  the  horses  of  the  bandits, 
which  were  still  hitched  in  the  alley.  His  back 


3 88  The  Story  of 

was  turned  toward  Grattan  Dalton.  The  lat- 
ter must  have  been  crippled  somewhere  in  his 
right  arm  or  shoulder,  for  he  did  not  raise 
his  rifle  to  his  face,  but  fired  from  his  hip,  shoot- 
ing Connolly  down  at  a  distance  of  about  twenty 
feet  or  so. 

There  was  a  slight  lull  at  this  point  of  the 
street  fight,  and  during  this  Dick  Broadwell, 
who  had  been  wounded  again  in  the  back, 
crawled  into  concealment  in  a  lumber  yard  near 
by  the  alley  where  the  horses  were  tied.  He 
crept  out  to  his  horse  and  mounted,  but  just 
as  he  started  away  met  the  livery  man,  John  J. 
Kloehr,  who  did  some  of  the  best  shooting  re- 
corded by  the  citizens.  Kloehr  was  hurrying 
thither  with  Carey  Seaman,  the  latter  armed 
with  a  shotgun.  Kloehr  fired  his  rifle  and  Sea- 
man his  shotgun,  and  both  struck  Broadwell, 
who  rode  away,  but  fell  dead  from  his  horse 
a  short  distance  outside  the  town. 

Bob  and  Emmett  Dalton,  after  killing  Cu- 
bine  and  Brown  and  shooting  Ayres,  hurried  on 
to  join  their  companions  and  to  get  to  their 
horses.  At  an  alleyway  junction  they  spied 
F.  D.  Benson  climbing  out  of  a  window,  and 
fired  at  him,  but  missed.  An  instant  later,  as 
Bob  stepped  into  full  view  of  those  who  were 


The   Outlaw  389 

firing  from  the  Isham  store,  he  was  struck  by 
a  ball  and  badly  wounded.  He  walked  slowly 
across  the  alley  and  sat  down  on  a  pile  of  stones, 
but  like  his  b^<-her  Grattan,  he  kept  his  rifle 
going,  though  mortally  shot.  He  fired  once 
at  Kloehr,  but  was  unsteady  and  missed  him. 
Rising  to  his  feet  he  walked  a  few  paces  and 
leaned  against  the  corner  of  a  barn,  firing  two 
more  shots.  He  was  then  killed  by  Kloehr, 
who  shot  him  through  the  chest. 

By  this  time  Grattan  Dalton  was  feebly  try- 
ing to  get  to  his  horse.  He  passed  the  body  of 
Connolly,  whom  he  had  killed,  faced  toward  his 
pursuers  and  tried  to  fire.  He,  too,  fell  before 
Kloehr's  Winchester,  shot  through  the  throat, 
dropping  close  to  the  body  of  Connolly. 

Emmett  Dalton  was  now  the  only  one  of  the 
band  left  alive.  He  was  as  yet  unwounded, 
and  he  got  to  his  horse.  As  he  attempted  to 
mount  a  number  of  shots  were  fired  at  him,  and 
these  killed  the  two  horses  belonging  to  Bob 
Dalton  and  Bill  Powers,  who  by  this  time  had 
no  further  use  for  horses.  Two  horses  hitched 
to  an  oil  wagon  in  the  street  were  also  killed 
by  wild  shots.  Emmett  got  into  his  saddle,  but 
was  shot  through  the  right  arm  and  through 
the  left  hip  and  groin.  He  still  clung  to  the 


390  The  Story  of 

sack  of  money  they  had  taken  at  the  First 
National  Bank,  and  he  still  kept  his  nerve  and 
his  wits  even  under  such  pressure  of  peril.  He 
might  have  escaped,  but  instead  he  rode  back  to 
where  Bob  was  lying,  and  reached  down  his  hand 
to  help  him  up  behind  himself  on  the  horse. 
Bob  was  dying  and  told  him  it  was  no  use  to 
try  to  help  him.  As  Emmett  stooped  down  to 
reach  Bob's  arm,  Carey  Seaman  fired  both  bar- 
rels of  his  shotgun  into  his  back,  Emmett  drop- 
ping near  Bob  and  falling  upon  the  sack,  con- 
taining over  $20,000  in  cash.  Men  hurried  up 
and  called  to  him  to  throw  up  his  hands.  He 
raised  his  one  unhurt  arm  and  begged  for  mercy. 
It  was  supposed  he  would  die,  and  he  was  not 
lynched,  but  hurried  away  to  a  doctor's  office 
near  by. 

In  the  little  alley  where  the  last  scene  of  this 
bloody  fight  took  place  there  were  found  three 
dead  men,  one  dying  man  and  one  badly 
wounded.  Three  dead  horses  lay  near  the  same 
spot.  In  the  whole  fight,  which  was  of  course 
all  over  in  a  few  moments,  there  were  killed 
four  citizens  and  four  outlaws,  three  citizens 
and  one  outlaw  being  wounded.  Less  than  a 
dozen  citizens  did  most  of  the  shooting,  of 
which  there  was  considerable,  eighty  bullet 


The  Outlaw  391 

marks  being  found  on  the  front  of  the  Condon 
bank  alone. 

The  news  of  this  bloody  encounter  was  in- 
stantly flashed  over  the  country,  and  within  a 
few  hours  the  town  was  crowded  with  sight- 
seers who  came  in  by  train  loads.  The  dead 
bandits  were  photographed,  and  the  story  of 
the  fight  was  told  over  and  over  again,  not 
always  with  uniformity  of  detail.  Emmett 
Dalton,  before  he  was  sent  to  the  penitentiary, 
confessed  to  different  crimes,  not  all  of  them 
hitherto  known,  which  the  gang  had  at  different 
times  committed. 

So  ended  in  blood  the  career  of  as  bloody  a 
band  as  might  well  be  discovered  in  the  robber 
history  of  any  land  or  time  of  the  world.  Indeed, 
it  is  doubtful  if  any  country  ever  saw  leagues 
of  robbers  so  desperate  as  those  which  have 
existed  in  America,  any  with  hands  so  red  in 
blood.  This  fact  is  largely  due  to  the  peculiar 
history  of  this  country,  with  its  rapid  develop- 
ment under  swift  modern  methods  of  transpor- 
tation. In  America  the  advance  to  the  west- 
ward of  the  fighting  edge  of  civilization,  where 
it  meets  and  mingles  with  savagery,  has  been 
more  rapid  than  has  ever  been  known  in  the 
settlement  of  any  country  of  the  world.  More- 


392  The  Story  of 

over,  this  has  taken  place  at  precisely  that  time 
when  weapons  of  the  most  deadly  nature  have 
been  invented  and  made  at  a  price  permitting 
all  to  own  them  and  many  to  become  extremely 
skilled  with  them.  The  temptation  and  the 
means  of  murder  have  gone  hand  in  hand.  And 
in  time  the  people,  not  the  organized  law 
courts,  have  applied  the  remedy  when  the  time 
has  come  for  it.  To-day  the  Indian  Nations  are 
no  more  than  a  name.  Civilization  has  taken 
them  over.  Statehood  has  followed  territorial 
organization.  Presently  rich  farms  will  make  a 
continuous  sea  of  grain  across  what  was  once 
a  flood  of  crime,  and  the  wheat  will  grow  yel- 
low, and  the  cotton  white,  where  so  long  the 
grass  was  red. 


The  Outlaw  393 


Chapter  XXII 

Desperadoes  of  the  Cities — Great  Cities  Now 
the  Most  Dangerous  Places — City  Bad  Men's 
Contempt  for  Womanhood — Nine  Thousand 
Murders  a  Year,  and  Not  Two  Hundred  Pun- 
ished— The  Reasonableness  of  Lynch  Law.  : 

IT  was  stated  early  in  these  pages  that  the 
great  cities  and  the  great  wildernesses  are 
the  two  homes  for  bold  crimes;  but  we 
have  been  most  largely  concerned  with  the  lat- 
ter in  our  studies  of  desperadoes  and  in  our 
search  for  examples  of  disregard  of  the  law. 
We  have  found  a  turbulence,  a  self-insistence, 
a  vigor  and  self-reliance  in  the  American  char- 
acter which  at  times  has  led  on  to  lawlessness 
on  our  Western  frontier. 

Conditions  have  changed.  We  still  revel  in 
Wild  West  literature,  but  there  is  little  of  the 
wild  left  in  the  West  of  to-day,  little  of  the  old 
lawlessness.  The  most  lawless  time  of  America 


394  The  Story  of 

is  to-day,  but  the  most  lawless  parts  of  America 
are  the  most  highly  civilized  parts.  The  most 
dangerous  section  of  America  is  not  the  West, 
but  the  East. 

The  worst  men  are  no  longer  those  of  the 
mountains  or  the  plains,  but  of  the  great  cities. 
The  most  absolute  lawlessness  exists  under  the 
shadow  of  the  tallest  temples  of  the  law,  and  in 
the  penetralia  of  that  society  which  vaunts  it- 
self as  the  supreme  civilization  of  the  world. 
We  have  had  no  purpose  in  these  pages  to  praise 
any  sort  of  crime  or  to  glorify  any  manner  of 
bad  deeds ;  but  if  we  were  forced  to  make  choice 
among  criminals,  then  by  all  means  that  choice 
should  be,  must  be,  not  the  brutal  murderer  of 
the  cities,  but  the  desperado  of  the  old  West. 
The  one  is  an  assassin,  the  other  was  a  warrior ; 
the  one  is  a  dastard,  the  other  was  something  of 
a  man. 

A  lawlessness  which  arises  to  magnitude  is 
not  called  lawlessness;  and  killing  more  than 
murder  is  called  war.  The  great  industrial  cen- 
ters show  us  what  ruthlessness  may  mean,  more 
cruel  and  more  dangerous  than  the  worst  deeds 
of  our  border  fighting  men.  As  for  the  crim- 
inal records  of  our  great  cities,  they  surpass 
by  infinity  those  of  the  rudest  wilderness  an- 


The  Outlaw  395 

archy.  Their  nature  at  times  would  cause  a 
hardened  desperado  of  the  West  to  blush  for 
shame. 

One  distinguished  feature  of  city  badness  is 
the  great  number  of  crimes  against  women, 
ranging  from  robbery  to  murder.  Now,  the 
desperado,  the  bandit,  the  robber  of  the  wildest 
West  never  made  war  on  any  woman,  rarely 
ever  robbed  a  woman,  even  when  women  min- 
gled with  the  victims  of  a  "stand  and  deliver" 
general  robbery  of  a  stage  or  train.  The  man 
who  would  kill  a  woman  in  the  West  could 
never  meet  his  fellow  in  fair  fight  again.  The 
rope  was  ready  for  him,  and  that  right  quickly. 

But  how  is  it  in  the  great  cities,  under  the 
shadow  of  the  law?  Forget  the  crimes  of  in- 
dustrialism, the  sweat-shops  and  factories, 
which  undermine  the  last  hope  of  a  nation — the 
constitution  of  its  women — and  take  the  open 
and  admitted  crimes.  One  city  will  suffice  for 
this,  and  that  may  be  the  city  of  Chicago. 

In  Chicago,  in  the  past  twenty-four  years, 
very  nearly  two  thousand  murders  have  been 
committed;  and  of  these,  two  hundred  remain 
mysteries  to-day,  their  perpetrators  having  gone 
free  and  undetected.  In  the  past  year,  seven- 
teen women  have  been  murdered  in  Chicago, 


396  The  Story  of 

some  under  circumstances  too  horrible  to  men- 
tion. In  a  list  of  fifty  murders  by  unknown 
parties  during  the  last  few  years,  the  whole 
gamut  of  dastardly  crime  has  been  run.  The 
slaughter  list  is  appalling.  The  story  of  this 
killing  of  women  is  so  repellant  that  one  turns 
to  the  bloodiest  deeds  of  Western  personal  com- 
bats with  a  feeling  of  relief;  and  as  one  does  so 
one  adds,  "Here  at  least  were  men." 

The  story  of  Chicago  is  little  worse,  accord- 
ing to  her  population,  than  that  of  New  York, 
of  Boston,  of  any  large  city.  Foot  up  the 
total  of  the  thousands  of  murders  committed 
every  year  in  America.  Then,  if  you  wish  to 
become  a  criminal  statistician,  compare  that 
record  with  those  of  England,  France  or  Ger- 
many. We  kill  ten  persons  to  England's  one; 
and  we  kill  them  in  the  cities. 

In  the  cities  it  is  unlawful  to  wear  arms,  and 
to  protect  one's  self  against  armed  attack  is 
therefore  impossible.  In  the  cities  we  have 
policemen.  Against  real  fighting  men,  the  aver- 
age policeman  would  be  helpless.  Yet,  such  as  he 
is,  he  must  be  the  sole  fence  against  the  bloody- 
minded  who  do  not  scruple  at  robbery  and  mur- 
der. In  the  labor  riots,  the  streets  of  a  city 
are  avenues  of  anarchy,  and  none  of  our  weak- 


The  Outlaw  397 

souled  officials,  held  in  the  cursed  thrall  of  poli- 
tics, seems  able  to  prevent  it.  A  dozen  town 
marshals  of  the  old  stripe  would  restore  peace 
and  fill  a  graveyard  in  one  day  of  any  strike; 
and  their  peace  would  be  permanent.  A  real 
town  marshal  at  the  head  of  a  city  police  force, 
with  real  fighting  men  under  him,  could  restore 
peace  and  fill  a  graveyard  in  one  month  in  any 
city;  and  that  peace  would  be  permanent.  If 
we  wished  the  law,  we  could  have  it. 

The  history  of  the  bloodiest  lawlessness  of 
the  American  past  shows  continual  repetitions. 
First,  liberty  is  construed  to  mean  license,  and 
license  unrebuked  leads  on  to  insolence.  Still 
left  unrebuked,  license  organizes  against  the 
law,  taking  the  form  of  gangs,  factions,  bandit 
clans.  Then  in  time  the  spirit  of  law  arises, 
and  not  the  law,  but  the  offended  individuals 
wronged  by  too  much  license,  take  the  matter 
into  their  own  hands,  not  waiting  for  the  courts, 
but  executing  a  swifter  justice.  It  is  the  terror 
of  lynch  law  which  has,  in  countless  instances, 
been  the  foundation  of  the  later  courts,  with 
their  slow  moving  and  absurdly  inefficient  meth- 
ods. In  time  the  inefficiency  of  the  courts  once 
more  begets  impatience  and  contempt.  The 
people  again  rebel  at  the  fact  that  their  govern- 


398  The  Story  of 

ment  gives  them  no  government,  that  their 
courts  give  them  no  justice,  that  their  peace 
officers  give  them  no  protection.  Then  they 
take  matters  into  their  hands  once  more,  and 
show  both  courts  and  criminals  that  the  people 
still  are  strong  and  terrible. 

The  deprecation  of  lynch  law,  and  the  whin- 
ing cry  that  the  law  should  be  supported,  that 
the  courts  should  pass  on  the  punishment,  is 
in  the  first  place  the  plea  of  the  weak,  and  in 
the  second  place,  the  plea  of  the  ignorant.  He 
has  not  read  the  history  of  this  country,  and  has 
never  understood  the  American  character  who 
says  lynch  law  is  wrong.  It  has  been  the  sal- 
vation of  America  a  thousand  times.  It  may 
perhaps  again  be  her  salvation. 

In  one  way  or  another  the  American  people 
will  assert  the  old  vigilante  principle  that  a 
man's  life,  given  him  by  God,  and  a  man's 
property,  earned  by  his  own  labor,  are  things 
he  is  entitled  to  defend  or  have  defended.  He 
never  wholly  delegates  this  right  to  any  gov- 
ernment. He  may  rescind  his  qualified  delega- 
tion when  he  finds  his  chosen  servants  unfaith- 
ful or  inefficient;  and  so  have  back  again  clean 
his  own  great  and  imperishable  human  rights. 
A  wise  law  and  one  enforced  is  tolerable.  An 


r; 
1' 

o_ 
5" 

n 
g 

3 

41 


The  Outlaw  399 

unjust  and  impure  law  is  intolerable,  and  it  is 
no  wrong  to  cast  off  allegiance  to  it.  If  so, 
Magna  Charta  was  wrong,  and  the  American 
Revolution  earth's  greatest  example  of  lynch 
law! 

Conclusions  parallel  to  these  are  expressed 
by  no  less  a  citizen  than  Andrew  D.  White, 
long  United  States  Minister  to  Germany,  who, 
in  the  course  of  an  address  at  a  prominent  uni- 
versity of  America,  in  the  year  1906,  made  the 
following  bold  remarks : 

"There  is  a  well-defined  criminal  class  in  all 
of  our  cities;  a  class  of  men  who  make  crime  a 
profession.  Deaths  by  violence  are  increasing 
rapidly.  Our  record  is  now  larger  than  any 
other  country  of  the  world.  The  number  of 
homicides  that  are  punished  by  lynching  ex- 
ceeds the  number  punished  by  due  process  of 
law.  There  is  nothing  more  nonsensical  or 
ridiculous  than  the  goody-goody  talk  about 
lynching.  Much  may  be  said  in  favor  of  Gold- 
win  Smith's  quotation,  that  'there  are  commu- 
nities in  which  lynch  law  is  better  than  any 
other.' 

uThe  pendulum  has  swung  from  extreme 
severity  in  the  last  century  to  extreme  laxity  in 
this  century.  There  has  sprung  up  a  certain 


400  The  Story  of 

sentimental  sympathy.  In  the  word  of  a  dis- 
tinguished jurist,  'the  taking  of  life  for  the 
highest  crime  after  due  process  of  law  is  the 
only  taking  of  life  which  the  American  people 
condemn.' 

uln  the  next  year  9,000  people  will  be  mur- 
dered. As  I  stand  here  to-day  I  tell  you  that 
9,000  are  doomed  to  death  with  all  the  cruelty 
of  the  criminal  heart,  and  with  no  regard  for 
home  and  families;  and  two-thirds  will  be  due 
to  the  maudlin  sentiment  sometimes  called 
mercy. 

"I  have  no  sympathy  for  the  criminal.  My 
sympathy  is  for  those  who  will  be  murdered; 
for  their  families  and  for  their  children.  This 
sham  humanitarianism  has  become  a  stench. 
The  cry  now  is  for  righteousness.  The  past 
generation  has  abolished  human  slavery.  It  is 
for  the  present  to  deal  with  the  problems  of 
the  future,  and  among  them  this  problem  of 


crime." 


Against  doctrine  of  this  sort  none  will  pro- 
test but  the  politicians  in  power,  under  whose 
lax  administration  of  a  great  trust  there  has 
arisen  one  of  the  saddest  spectacles  of  human 
history,  the  decay  of  the  great  American  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  and  fair  play.  The  criminals 


The  Outlaw  401 

of  our  city  are  bold,  because  they,  if  not  our- 
selves, know  of  this  decay.  They,  if  not 
ourselves,  know  the  weakness  of  that  political 
system  to  which  we  have,  in  carelessness  equal- 
ing that  of  the  California  miners  of  old — a 
carelessness  based  upon  a  madness  of  money 
equal  to  or  surpassing  that  of  the  gold  stam- 
pedes— delegated  our  sacred  personal  rights  to 
live  freely,  to  own  property,  and  to  protect  each 
for  himself  his  home. 


THE    END 


